


Did You Think About Those Who Would Be Left Behind?

by beepbeepliv



Series: You Didn't Deserve That [3]
Category: Descendants (Disney Movies)
Genre: Audrey & Ben BFFs
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-01-22
Updated: 2018-09-11
Packaged: 2019-03-08 07:49:25
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 4
Words: 28,284
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13453713
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/beepbeepliv/pseuds/beepbeepliv
Summary: After spending their whole lives on The Isle, six children are invited to attend Auradon Prep at the request of Prince Ben.This was their chance; They weren't going to waste it





	1. 1. From The Very Beginning

**Author's Note:**

> I will add tags and relationships every chapter so there are no spoilers lmao (aiming for 2 chaps a month but I'm also a lying hoe so dont quote me)
> 
> OKAY SO DISCLAIMER
> 
> I have read a FUCKTON of fanfiction before starting this so I knew as soon as I got this ‘idea’ it wasn’t all fully mine. However, as I read So. Damn. Much. I can’t specifically remember which ideas are mine and which I read and liked and snatched up. I know I got something from a fic called ‘Dog-Eared Page’ on AO3 and I stole a couple things from Shadowhunters and Once Upon A Time. I also got Carlos’ island background from somewhere, but I can’t remember where from; so if you see any idea or theme that you think I stole from you pls hmu if u want me to get rid of it or credit you for it bc I legit do not remember ok thank you. No harm meant I swear.
> 
> It starts of very similar to descendants 1 but then like more stuff goes down.
> 
> ALSO MY HC IS THAT GIL IS SO FRENCH IF U DONT LIKE THAT EAT MY ASS. Ben + Ant are French also. Mal super American. Evie is German while Carlos is a Brit.
> 
> ALSO ALSLO idk what counts as underage in America but in the UK its under 16 so that’s what I class as underage so sorry if u get triggered at 17 yr olds doing the do.
> 
> ALLLOS ALSO ALLOS I recently found out that one of my OC’s was canon so I’m pretty chuffed lol am I a published writer? uh duh, look at me

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _After a moment, everyone looked over at Gaston expectantly, waiting for him to input like the other parents had. He noticed all the attention directed his way and laughed when he realised why._
> 
> _“You can take the boy, do what you want with him, as if I care. Actually, do take him, he’s no use to me anyway and I have better kids at home that I need to look after.” He declared. There was a tense silence and Gil looked at the floor, embarrassed, and willed away the tears._
> 
>  
> 
> _“Awkward.” Maleficent said, making a face toward the other parents_

Ben gazed out the castle window, deep in thought. Luckily -or maybe not so much if you considered how long it took him to do homework sometimes- his bedroom study had a perfect view of the Isle. It looked ridiculously small when he considered just how many people had to be living there. It couldn’t have been bigger than North Riding in its entirety, though it must have had double the population. Surrounding every edge of the island was a steep 100-metre drop unto jagged rocks (“just a precautionary measure, in case anyone manages to, somehow, break the barrier” Ben’s father had declared upon its creation). That, of course, was exempting the area underneath the bridge that led to Auradon – they didn’t want to risk any casualties on authorised visits between the lands.

It always seemed dark and dreary on the Isle, even in the brightest of mornings when Ben was woken up solely by the light flooding through his curtains, it seemed to have a permanent rain cloud positioned over it. There was never any bright lights, sparks or rainbows; no parties, no fireworks and on some nights, when it was very quiet, and Ben lay in bed, very, very still, he could swear he heard screams. Of course, he’d put it down to his overactive imagination working with all the stories he’d heard about the Isle but it didn’t make him feel any less unnerved. Ben supposed the atmosphere on the Isle must reflect that of all the villains trapped there but he couldn’t imagine how horrible it must be for their children or for the ones who did nothing (or very little) wrong but were trapped regardless.

Who was he, or his parents, to judge people as ‘good’ or ‘evil’ and then trap them and give them no say in the matter and no chance for redemption. That idea seemed positively barbaric to him. Ben remembered his first and only visit to the Isle, specifically remembered spotting a small child being pushed around and bullied by someone much older than her. She’d looked so small and scared, screaming and crying but no-one paid her any mind. Even Ben’s parents had walked straight past, dragging Ben to keep him moving and claiming it was none of their business. Ben had cried and begged his father to tear down the barrier so much that night that he was never allowed to visit again. He still had the occasional dream of that night, his memories morphing and becoming scarier as he aged and learnt of more traumatic events that took place on that Island.

He shook himself out his trance once he heard his parents calling for him, no longer distracted, he realised he was now absentmindedly sketching instead of actually doing his homework for Mundane Spelling 101.

“Fishcakes,” he murmured when he saw that instead of drawing the transformation rune he was supposed to have perfected for class tomorrow, he’d succeeded instead in drawing the face of the boy that persistently plagued his dreams, yet again. He hurriedly flipped through his notebook to find a page that held something even remotely resembling homework as he heard his parent’ voices get louder.

“Ben!” his mother exclaimed cheerily as she swung the door open just as he managed to find a page full of his attempts at drawing a Healing Rune. She entered the room briskly, with a flourish Ben envied wholeheartedly. He’d inherited all of his father’s clumsiness and none of his mother’s grace, her beauty maybe, he guessed that was enough. Before he realised what was happening she was peppering kisses all over his face.

“Ugh,” he groaned, fondly pushing her away while his father laughed in the background, “Good Morning, mama.” She flushed looking everything but apologetic.

“Oh I’m sorry Ben, _chéri,_ but I just can’t believe it! My _petit garçon_ is turning eighteen! _Mon fils! Vous ne pouvez pas vieillir_.” Horrified, Ben noticed tears pooling in her eyes as she fanned her face.

“Oh mother please don’t cry.” He pleaded standing up to pull her into a hug as the tears finally came.

“You’re just growing up so fast,” she argued, “soon you’ll be king and I’m just— I’m not sure if you can handle all that. I don’t know if I can handle the thought of you handling all of that.” She forced the words out. Ben seconded that. He understood that with his eighteenth birthday approaching he was finally ‘coming of age’ and his coronation to be king wasn’t far off. He couldn’t say he was looking forward to it, eighteen seemed far too young to be king. The idea of a lot more responsibilities and a lot less freedom seemed wholly unappealing to him. However, he’d never voiced any of his concerns, and was not planning on it anytime soon, he didn’t want to seem ungrateful of his status or unaware of his privilege and responsibilities.

“I second that!” His father boomed, basically reading Ben’s mind, “I didn’t make a good decision until I was 27 at least.” Belle paused, glancing over at Adam with a shy smile.

“You decided to marry me at 27,” she reminded

“Oh I know,” Ben’s father replied smoothly, leaning down to kiss his wife

“Okay, ew, no thanks, gross. First royal decree, no PDA from anyone over the age of 35,” Ben murmured petulantly, pulling a face of disgust. His parents both laughed, obviously not caring how their continuous show of inappropriate affections may negatively affect Ben’s mental development. Rolling her eyes at the look of mild disgust on her son’s face, Belle decided to humour him and step away with her hands raised in penance.

“Looks like he’s taken a shine to this king thing easier than we thought.” His father joked and Ben chuckled nervously

“Yeah, but, um I have actually chosen my first official proclamation.” He admitted nervously. The shock was clear on his parents’ face. Ben wasn’t surprised. Recently his head had been stuck so high in the clouds everyone wondered whether he would be present enough to complete college. “and I spent a really long time thinking about it. It’s probably why I’ve been so distracted lately,” he added in answer to his parents’ unspoken ‘oh really?’.

“Well,” his mother started, looking over to his father for support. Adam gestured to the chairs and soon they were all seated around Ben’s bedroom table. “let us hear it then.” Ben took a deep breath.

“I think we should give all the children on the Isle a chance to live over here in Auradon and redeem themselves, see— seeing as they haven’t actually done anything wrong and…”

“Hold on. You’re talking about the children of our sworn enemies. Those children.”

“Yes Papa, their children, not the villains themselves. They are being punished for the things their parents did and I don’t think it’s far for us to do that to them. It feels, almost, evil.” Ben admitted. “You raised me to be good, right? Well imagine if you had raised me as the beast, before you met Mère. I’m sure I would have turned out differently, way different.” Adam expression soften and Ben had no doubt that he was thinking back to how he had originally treated Belle before they’d fallen in love.

“It’s nature and nurture, right?” he continued, excited now as he felt he could win them over, “Like Psychology? Sure, they may have been born as villains but surround them with good influences and they could flourish, Papa. And let’s be honest most of those ‘villains’ weren’t _evil_ evil just scorned. Like…” Ben paused trying to think up an example, “oh, Edgar! I mean c’mon, Madame Bonfamille could have at least left a little of her fortune to him for his loyalty, what were the cats going to do with all that money?” Ben let out a long sigh, not wanting to divert too much. He could go on for hours about people on the Isle who did not deserve to be punished for life because they made a bad decision. “So yeah, that’s why I think that, and it wouldn’t even be all of them, not at first. We start with six and then work from there depending on how that goes.” His parents were silent for a long moment, sharing silent looks that went right over Ben’s head. He twiddled his thumbs together nervously.

“Ben, _chéri_ , are you one-hundred percent sure about this?” His mother asked kindly, reaching over to grasp his hand. Ben’s eyes lit up one he realised that they were planning on taking him seriously and genuinely considering his plea.

“Yes,” he cried, ecstatic, “yes and I’ve already picked out the six children,” he got up and quickly retrieved his note book that contained the six names and short unfinished notes on the little he’d managed to find about the children that he had picked. He slid it over to his parents before he could lose his nerve knowing that some of his picks were really far-fetched and not trusting his dad’s unconvinced expression. Belle looked impressed at the amount of thought that had no doubt gone into his decision from his list:

 

  1. _Antonia – Daughter of Anastasia Tremaine_



 

 

 

> _15 yr old, excels at art + baking. Cindy friends with Anastasia = cant b that bad?_

  1. _Genevieve – Daughter of Grim Hilde, the Evil Queen_



 

 

 

> _16 yr old fashion prodigy_

  1. _Jay – Son of Jafar_



 

 

 

> _minor_
> 
> _17 year old good @ sports, ^ anger problems_

  1. _Mal – Daughter of Maleficient_



 

 

 

> _16 yr old, ~~problem with authority~~ , strong spirit_

  1. _Gil – Son of Gaston_



 

 

 

> _15 year old, not the brightest but strong. Would do well in the army (gymnast - could be a guard)_

  1. _Carlos – Son of Cruella de Vil_



 

 

 

> _16 years old, ~~hacker~~ , good with mechanics. Powerless=harmless_

 

“This is an interesting list,” Belle proclaimed after a moment’s silence. His father didn’t speak. “But, um, have you really thought all these through darling? Like the son of Cruella? You know what she’d like to do to your father… and you if you eventually turn, Ben,” Ben was fully aware that if given the chance Cruella would skin his dad without batting an eye and wear him around the house. If, eventually, Ben did inherit his father’s ability to go ‘beast’ then having Carlos come to Auradon could prove extremely problematic but Ben was willing to believe Carlos wasn’t like his mother; someone had to believe in those children.

“Yes Ma, but…”

“The son of Gaston?” His father added quietly, fingers curling into fists, almost crushing the notebook paper in his anger. “You know what he did to us, you know how he almost—”

“Papa! Gaston has no powers, no skill. He was just a cocky, self-absorbed guy who was in love with Ma because she only one in the whole town with brains enough to not want him back.”

“He almost killed us both!” his father roared.

“I know, I know. Trust me Papa, mère, I know. It’s just… I’ve been having these visions,” He admitted reluctantly.

“You’ve been what?” Belle demanded, rising from her chair, “and you didn’t tell us. Wha—did you not think we’d listen, or, or…”

“No, Ma, nothing like that. I just wanted to be an adult about it, I guess. I’m almost 18 now, you know. Anyway, it started the day after I did my first Oracle Rune so I thought it was to be expected.”

“Baby, that was almost two months ago,” Belle pulled him into another hug, tighter and longer than the last. “Don’t ever keep anything like that, or anything at all away from me again. Do you understand me?” She ordered pulling back to look directly into his eyes. Ben nodded. He knew not to fight his mother when she took on that tone.

“Visions of what, son?” His father asked, genuine concern on his face. Many images flashed behind Ben’s eyes. Streets he had never seen before that were grimy and cluttered. Crying children, destruction and mayhem. A rekindling, a parade, feelings of forgiveness. Then faces, so many strange, strange faces… and then just one face. A boy. Over and over and over again. The same boy, different angles, at different ages. Young at first, unapproachable; all frowns and fear, then older and older, happier, hotter, then on him, breaths mingling, skin touching, smiles and heat and—Ben shook himself from his thoughts, drawn back to reality by his parent’s worried looks. He hoped he wasn’t blushing.

“Visions of us,” he settled on, “the USA united with the Isle of the Lost; and I think I have to be the one that makes it happen.”

_____

“No wonder you’re Ma’s favourite; Dad could never love you, you’re way too weak. Yeah, you got some muscle but there’s no bite behind it. I bet she’s just pitying you anyway, because she knows you’ll never amount to anything.” Gaston Jr sneered shoving Gil into the wall. Gaston the Third laughed in agreement.

“Yea, maybe you inherited the looks and the… not quite ‘there-there’-ness from dad but no strength or charisma— and look how skinny his neck is.” The two brothers burst into cruel laughter as Gil frowned at the ground trying not to let them know how much their words were hurting him.

“We got the looks, the strength and Ma’s smarts,” Gaston Jr boasted.

“And Papa’s humility” Gil muttered.

“What was that, _maigre_?” Gaston the third muttered darkly. Now, Gil didn’t know much, admittedly, but in that moment, he knew he had fucked up. Badly.

“Uh, nothing, I just—” He let out a groan as one of his brothers punched him in the stomach, his vision blurred and he dropped to his knees. Immediately tears sprang into his eyes and he regretted all of his life choices leading up to this moment. He should never even have left the house today, who needs food?

“Aw look at that G, he’s crying. Maybe you hit him a bit too hard.” Gaston Jr said mockingly with a snigger before raising a fist at the already incapacitated Gil (who flinched, pressing his eyes shut.)

“Oh, bet ah could _skelp_ ye a whole lot harder.” A Scottish drawl rang out from the entrance of the alleyway. The two boys froze as they heard the tell-tale scratching of metal against the bricks that made up the alley walls. “But, ah mean, if ye don’t believe that feel free to come at me, we can test t’theory. It’s like science.” Harry finished, leaning against a nearby barrel with a disinterested look on his face as he picked at a dent in his hook. It was almost scarier that he was acting normal, as opposed to his usual crazy self. Serious Harry usually meant trouble, even the twins knew that.

“Look bro, we were just joking around with our little Gil here. Weren’t we, buddy?” Gaston Jr reasoned, unconvincingly. Gil coughed up a bit of blood.

“That’s funny. You’re joking ‘n’ I’m _nae_.” Harry declared with an air of finality, sticking his hook into the wall to clarify his point. “So scram, ye _radge shites_.” Suddenly he was pressing Gaston the Third into the wall, his hook dangerously close to his eye, “ _Afore_ I get angry.”

Gaston Jr was out of the alley and halfway down the street before Gaston the Third could even wrangle himself out of Harry’s grip.

“You’re fucking crazy. I’ll— I’ll get my dad on you. He’s slick, he’s quick and his neck’s incre— AH” He screamed as he dodged out of the way of a Shuriken Harry had flung before speeding away after his brother.

“Where did you get of those?” Gil forced out, feeling embarrassed that he was so winded over a single punch and wanting to change the subject before they even started talking about it. Harry smiled contemplatively, obviously thinking back, before making eye contact with Gil again and shaking his head.

“Bought it aff Jay, long story. Look, _stór_ , d’ya reckon ye could stand for me?” Harry replied, uncharacteristically soft to anyone who didn’t know about him and Gil; which was everyone.

“You must think I’m so weak, going down after one hit.” Gil let out a humourless chuckle, “Can barely hold my own, you… you’re so strong while I’m just—”

“Hey! hey,” Harry interrupted kindly, kneeling to be same height with Gil, “Okay, maybe standing up is _awfy_ much for ye, are ye okay?”

“No—I mean yes, yes I’m fine; and I can stand just give me a moment.”

“Good,” Harry murmured, leaning down to steal a quick kiss, “I don’t like tae worry or emote t’all tae be honest. Ye make me feel…. pure weird.”

“Yeah, you seemed really angry just then, hard to believe that was all for me? It was kinda scary, in like, a hot way.” Gil added the last part after a couple seconds, as an afterthought. Harry laughed, falling into a sitting position beside his boyfriend. It was moments like these that Harry remember how young his boyfriend was. His laughter faded into nervous chuckles and they were silent for a moment as he looked down at his hands. He leaned over to kiss Gill again. This time softer, prying the younger boys mouth open with his tongue. It was difficult not to immediately dominate when Gil opened up for him so eagerly, reaching up to grip Harry’s bicep to steady himself. He couldn’t hold back a whine when Harry pulled away suddenly and found it even more difficult to focus on the words the older boy was saying. His hand slid down Harry’s arm to thread their fingers together.

“Dae ye, um, remember a couple weeks ago when ye asked me how come ah didn’t want people to know aboot us?” Gil nodded, still trying to catch his breath. How could he forget? He’d been so upset when Harry had harshly denied to Evie that he and Gil were, or would ever be, in a relationship and then cornered him later, demanding he never tell anyone or they were over. Had Gil been a bit smarter he probably would have dumped Harry then rather than agreeing like a lost puppy. God, he was pathetic.

“Well, uh, dae ye also remember when ye asked what ah was ‘fraid of ‘n’ I told ye that, uh, ‘the key tae havin na fear is havin nothing tae lose’ or some shit,” Gil nodded, holding his breath, he didn’t want to get his hopes up but Harry’s words sounded entirely too promising, “you, um, ah mean… ah think I’ve found something that I’d rather not lose, something that I’d— I’d rather die than lose, and it’s you. But Gil, Gil listen, if people found out, they could use that against me, use ye against me. You make me weak, Gil, I would do crazy things for you. That’s why they can ne’er know.” Harry finished with a deep sigh and leaned his forehead against Gil’s. The silence stretched on, and Harry let it until he started to feel unsure of how Gil would react to his confession. He opened his eyes and leaned back to take in Gil’s expression and was shocked at the dopey grin his boyfriend wore.

“Why are ye looking at me like that?” Gil just smiled louder “Stop that richt now,” Chuckling, Gil directed his eyes to the space between them while tightening his grip on Harry’s hand. He felt all sorts of giddy, that was way better than anything he could have expected Harry to say. He wanted to keep him secret because he had super strong feeling for him? That was the best news Gil had received in, like, ever. There was no way he could stop smiling.

“Can you get up now?” Gil nodded, still looking down

“Good, now let’s go. I heard Uma and Mal bickering oan my way ower ‘ere. _Wha kens_ how far that has escalated since.” Harry uttered, getting to his feet and pulling Gil up with him. Gil directed his smile back up at Harry who rolled his eyes but didn’t argue this time.

“I love you too by the way.” He whispered, Harry spluttered wordlessly.

“I—I ne’er said that.” Gil shrugged, starting off down the alley

“You didn’t need to and you don’t have to until you’re ready. Just know that when you are, I’m ready to say it back.” Gil responded sounding wise beyond his years and Harry could only pretend to be scandalised for a few moments before his smile broke through and he just shrugged before motioning with his head over to the direction he figured Mal and Uma were.

“C’mon, lets go break that up.”

___

 

“Give it back!” Uma growled lowly, fingers curling inwards making her fingernails cut into her palms. The pain slightly distracted from her budding anger but not enough. “Hand. Over. The hat. Mal.” Usually she wouldn’t give Mal the satisfaction of getting her so worked up, especially over a hat, but it was her first legitimate pirate hat. One she and Harry has stolen together so they could have matching pairs – as a way of differentiating head crew from the rest of her wharf rats. It had sentiment to it and no way would she let Mal take that from her, she’d never let Mal take anything from her, not today and never again.

Mal had been walking over her ever since their first day of School (there was no nursery on the Isle). They were seven. Uma had walked into class late, Ursula not wanting to lose out on money by missing work just to take her child to something as trivial as School. She’d entered the school, hair in two short purple pigtails (It was during her phase of super loving her mum – that didn’t last very long) and smiled seeing all the kids that were like her. She noticed one boy in the corner playing pirates with a paper sword.

Upon approaching him, she was eagerly welcomed into the game by the brunette boy. Though shocked that the first three people she’d met other than her family (a girl with deep blue hair and a freckled boy with shocking white hair) were so nice considering how not nice her family was, for once in her, albeit short, life she was actually enjoying herself.

It wasn’t till break time that everything began to go downhill.

“You have to meet our friends Mal and Jay, Mal’s in the year above and she’s thu- sthu- _super_ cool and Jay’s _older_ older. He’s cool too.” The small boy, Carlos, told Uma with a slight lisp and eyes gleaming. Uma just nodded excited to meet the infamous Mal, expecting her to be just as nice as her friends. The 2 nd Years started break ten minutes later than the first years so the group were all waiting outside on the AstroTurf along with Ant, a small girl from the second 1st year class until Mal made her appearance.

The only thing Uma could think upon seeing her was ‘wow’, she was beautiful. Her hair was short, choppy as if she had hacked at it herself with a blunt knife. Her lips were red but not from make-up, they looked bitten raw but they still hair an air of beauty about them. She looked very… weathered for an eight year old, Uma concluded, tough and bossy. Uma liked her.

However, once Mal reached the gang, she took one look at Uma and said,

“No.” Evie frowned looking between her best friend and her newest friend, whilst Uma kept her gaze on Mal, still a little awe-struck but mostly confused.

“But Mal, she’s super cool and she’s so good at pirates and check out what she’s wearing. Don’t you think—”

“What did I say Evie?” The blue-haired girl sighed, looking over to Uma sadly before looking down at her hands.

“You said ‘no’” She whispered and Mall nodded as if to say ‘yes, I did.’ She turned her attention to the little purple haired girl sitting with her friends and scoffed.

“Get lost, Shrimpy, go make your own friends.” Uma scowled, as if her anger would stop the tears threatening to flow from her eyes at the blatant rejection. But the girl didn’t justify Mal with a verbal response, she just determinedly got up, head held high and stomped away.

“That wasn’t very nice,” Gil said quietly, looking at the floor, no longer sure about this Mal.

“What did you say, small fry?” Gil frowned at Mal turning her abuse towards him before getting up and dusting his jeans.

“I said you’re not very nice,” He repeated.

“What did you expect?” Mal asked, squaring up to the smaller boy, “We’re evil.” His frown got deeper and he stalked off to go find where Uma had run off to, leaving his old friends in an awkward silence.

“Gosh Mal, why you always gotta drive people away?” Carlos asked quietly, watching as his two newest friends slipped through his fingers.

“Screw em, we’re fine the way we are. Rotten?” Evie asked, thrusting her fist forward

“To the core!” They all chorused. Uma never did get to meet ‘older, older’ Jay.

Ever since then, Mal had hated Uma for reasons nobody knew and Uma hated her back because she wasn’t about to let some overgrown bully walk all over her, what kind of villain would that make her?

“Mal, c’mon, let’s just head back.” Evie reasoned, the chattering of her teeth effectively snapping Uma out of her trance, “It’s getting cold.”

“Yeah and I’m so hungry I can’t see straight so either fuck her up or give the hat back but do one quick, alright?” Jay added from his perch across the street with Carlos nodding quickly in agreement. Mal rolled her eyes, choosing to ignore all her friends. She lowered the hat and waved it in front of Uma’s eyes before jerking it above her head when the younger girl reached out for it.

“Come and get it, Shrimpy.” She lilted waving the pirate cap to-and-fro. Uma’s eyes clouded over in anger at that damned nickname making a reappearance but as she moved to take a step forward she felt a cold hook on her shoulder holding her back.

“Darlin’ is it really worth it?” Harry murmured lowly. Uma, though glad that her friends were now here to even out the playing field (really 4-on-1 was just unfair), knew that if Harry, of all people, was trying to calm her down she must be making a spectacle of herself. However, just as she’d agreed and turned to leave with Harry and Gil, Mal piped up again.

“Yea that’s right, walk away, Shrimp. Ha, and they call you a villain.” She and her friends broke off into cold laughter and Uma’s blood felt like ice in her veins.

“Okay, that’s it, bring it on sunshine.” She snarled, ripping out of Harry’s grip and charging towards Mal. She was, maybe, a step away from her sworn enemy when a gust of green smoke appeared between the two girls.

“Oooh, now this is what I like to see. Fight, fight, fight!” Maleficent chanted with a smirk. “Well done, Mal dearest. Good to see you taking over the streets at such a young age. You make me so proud!” Mal beamed at the praise whilst Uma’s scowl deepened. “Although, I mean she’s still alive and kicking so you’re not doing that good a job.” With a twirl of her fingers the hat was now placed back, haphazardly, on Uma’s head.

“Mom!” but Maleficent held up a finger to silence her,

“There’s a difference between being a bully and being evil, Mal. You’ll have your chance…. Or you could spell it back.” Maleficent suggested. Mal shrugged aiming for indifference, her mother smirked knowing that her daughter only refused as she couldn’t spell anything yet.

“Whatever. She’s not worth my time anyway.”

“Alright, now all of you, scram,” Maleficent demanded, eyes flashing green. Everyone immediately began to disperse. Harry turned, protectively pulling Uma and Gil along behind him. “Apart from you, you, you, you, you and you.” Maleficent finished cheerily pointing out two girls; Mal and Evie and four boys; Ant, Jay, Carlos and Gil. Harry froze instinctively pulling Gil behind him in a possessive gesture. Maleficent smirked at the reaction, intrigued.

“Problem, Hook, son?” Everyone else looked over at Harry, puzzled and he had to remind himself why he didn’t want anyone knowing about he and Gil in the first place.

“We’re nae t’three amigos wi’ only two members. We need him back in one piece, we’ve got a ship tae run, ye maniac.” He explained, half-heartedly. Maleficent tried not to laugh at the blatant posturing Harry was exhibiting. She reached out towards him, grazing his face with her fingers.

“Oh, in another time son. I could have been your mother.” She leaned in closer, pressing her lips to Harry’s ear and lowering her voice to a whisper, “I just had to settle for stealing her instead.” Harry’s lip snarled, partly in disgust, partly in shock as he took off with Uma in tow without sparing a glance back. Gil tried not to feel bad, he knew it was necessary and he knew that Maleficent could push everyone’s buttons easily when she felt like it.

“Now,” Maleficent said with a flourish once they were alone, “good news and bad news.”

______

“You want us to what?” Mal said dryly. It had taken a while to gather everyone into Anastasia’s bakery, especially the children after the uproar that took place upon Maleficent’s declaration that they would all be transferring to Auradon prep. “and what’s the good news?”

“Oh good news, bad news, what’s the difference? Look children. You have been formally invited by the Prince to join Auradon Prep, personally. Don’t you understand what that means?” There were blank looks all around, especially from the parents. “You idiots, it means you can steal the wand!”

“Hey! Don’t call him an idiot!” Anastasia argued pulling Ant towards her protectively,

“Mama, you’re embarrassing me!” Ant said as the same time Jay snorted,

“Him? Since when were you a ‘him’?” He asked dismissively and Ant scowled as a blush spread across his face.

“Since forever lard-brain,” Was his less then lethal comeback

“Hey, I’m not judging, hot stuff!” Jay said with his arms raised but Ant scowled harder and ranted about how asking was judging in the first place and ‘do not call me that!’ with his mother eagerly backing him up.

“N-n-no, I heard they have dogs in Auradon?” Carlos asked quietly at the same time Evie enquired about their royal:commoner ratio. Maleficent smirked as she took in the chaos evolving around her, even though it was a distraction from her plan for this meeting she couldn’t help but feel proud that she could still cause all this mayhem without even thinking. She looked over at Gil, the only one who hadn’t spoken since her announcement and thought for a moment on the best way to antagonise him.

“What about you little Gilbert, any concerns?” She enquired with a smirk. Gil looked flustered, gaze ripped up from his fingers to her eyes. His were filled with hope and desperation. He wanted to go, that much was clear but he also didn’t for some reason, Maleficent couldn’t imagine why.

“Will— Will we be coming back?” he asked quietly.

“Why?” She smirked, “Got someone you’d miss?” Gil didn’t like the expression on her face. It was all too knowing.

“I just don’t know how long I can deal with a bunch of goody-two shoes.” He amended.

“Sure!” Maleficent replied, unconvinced and unsatisfied with the way Gil didn’t seem to get irked as easily as the other kids, “Alright, ORDER EVERYONE!” The room fell silent. “Right, I have a plan that will surprise our ‘friends’ over in Auradon and set us free from this hell. It just involves a little wand.” The silence stretched on for a moment before Anastasia frowned in realisation.

“Fairy Godmothers Wand?!” she exclaimed rising to her feet. The six children gasped looking over to maleficent who nodded, exasperated at how slow everyone around her was.

“You want us to steal it? No way! Way too dangerous” Jay stated looking at Maleficent as if she was crazy, “They’ve exiled magic, there must be so much security covering that wand!”

“Oh Maleficent they can’t, You can’t make them!” Maleficent frowned at Anastasia. _Shut up_ , she mouthed back, placing her hand on her temple. This would give her a migraine for sure.

“Yeah, how would you expect us to do that anyway?” Evie added, a bit calmer that Jay but still cynical at the idea. When the beast had exiled them away and stripped them of their powers, he had made it quite clear that they were being very serious about their control over the use of magic from now on to ‘avoid further tragedies’. Even the children were privy to that, knowing from the declaration scrolls stamped by the Beast’s royal seal. The gang couldn’t even begin to imagine the amount of protection that would be surrounding FGM’s wand. They all sat quietly in thought considering their options. If they did manage to pull it off, they would be unstoppable.

“What’s in it for us, then?” Mal asked finally. Maleficent rolled her eyes at having to repeat herself yet again.

“I already told you,” She said through gritted teeth and she moved to sit at the table with the rest of the parents and children, “power over the kingdoms. You’re my daughter, so we can share.”

“Um, I think she meant _us_ us,” Jay said, stepping up and gesturing towards himself and the other children who nodded in agreement.

“Oh, um, I don’t know, whatever you want, I guess. You’re children, it can’t be a lot. Video games?” She offered. The gang shared an unimpressed look. The children weren’t fully convinced, however their parents were a different matter.

“Well my Evie is definitely going!” Grimhilde stated flippantly as she touched up her eyeliner in her compact mirror.

“I am?” Evie asked, shocked that her mother was so down with the idea of her leaving.

“Of course _meine kleine Porzellanpuppe_! What do I always tell you? _Erst denken, dann handeln!_  A land full of princes and princesses, how could I stop you from that?” Evie’s eyes glazed over dreamily,

“Of course, she murmured, “I’m so dumb,”

“Go forth and grab you a royal, darling. Do it for momma.” She said only glancing at her daughter from over her mirror, she did a double take. “Ooh but you’ll never catch anyone with make up like that, sit, sit, let me just—” She grabbed a wipe from her purse and immediately got to cleaning up Evie’s contour.

“My Ant is going too!” Anastasia said decisively. Ant looked up at her in a mix of shock/horror.

“Ma, no!” Ant begun to argue before being cut off by his mother.

“Look, I may be trapped here, but you can go. You can leave and have a better life. You’re being held back on this damned Isle, you shouldn’t have to work in a bakery your whole life, just because I made a couple mistakes. You have so much talent baby! Regardless of if you guys succeed in getting that wand, you of all people deserve to get out of here. I bet they have healthcare like you wouldn’t believe over there. You can finally get the hormone treatment and not have to wear shitty binders 24/7”

“Mama,” Ant whispered softly, grabbing her hand “ _Je ne peux pas aller. Alors nous serons tous deux seuls_ ,”

“ _vous devez_ , baby…” she replied, tearing up slightly she pushed his hair back and placed a soft kiss on his forehead, “and then you can finally see your dad and dear old Cindy. Ooh and your step-cousins. You can see everyone.” Anastasia gaze shifted up to look out the window wistfully as the tears slipped out.

“Mama,” Ant wanted to argue further but he knew that his mother was fully able to think for herself. “If you really want me to go, I will, if it’ll make you happy.” He conceded, holding her hand so tightly within hers he figured it would probably bruise.

“I just want what’s best you darling, I want you to be happy.”

“You make me happy Ma, I’d be fine just staying here with you my whole life.”

“You make me so, so happy Anthony, I’ll miss you so much.” Anastasia finished, pulling her son into a tight hug as she knew it may be the last one she was ever able to give to him. She pulled back as her shaking hands unclasped the locket she always wore.

“Ma..” Ant breathed, voice racked with emotion, Anastasia just shushed him and she pulled it off and quickly put in unto him. He knew how much this necklace meant to her. “Are you sure?”

“I want you to have it, don’t forget me, my child.” She whispered, pulling him close once more and pressing a soft kiss to his forehead.

“I could never,” he replied quietly, “not ever,”

“Ew,” Maleficent pulled a face at the blatant show of emotion the Tremaines were displaying, “well, that made me super uncomfortable, who’s next?”

“Well you can forget about my Carlos, he’s staying right here.” Cruella said pulling her son towards her, Carlos nodded proudly as he settled into his mother’s side. “I need someone to give me my daily massages and perm my hair,”

“Oh,” he curled up his nose, “actually I really wouldn’t mind getting away from that for a while.” As much as he valued his safety and security from all those evil dogs, he did not enjoy practically being a slave.

“Carlos! Well, you haven’t forgotten about the dogs have you, they’re everywhere in Auradon and they don’t like villains” Cruella said menacingly before suddenly squeaking the little dog brooch on her coat. Carlos yelped.

“Jay isn’t going either!” Jafar announced, “Who will help me run the shop? He is by far the best thief on the whole Isle,”

“Yeah,” Jay nodded in agreement, hi-fiving his father and flexing obnoxiously. The other children rolled their eyes, used to Jays constant bravado while Maleficent had, scarily, zoned out as soon as she saw Jay’s muscles.

After a moment, everyone looked over at Gaston expectantly, waiting for him to input like the other parents had. He noticed all the attention directed his way and laughed when he realised why.

“You can take the boy, do what you want with him, as if I care. Actually, do take him, he’s no use to me anyway and I have better kids at home that I need to look after.” He declared. There was a tense silence and Gil looked at the floor, embarrassed, and willed away the tears.

“Awkward.” Maleficent said making a face toward the other parents and sucking in a breath before turning to face Cruella and Jafar. “Anywayy, c’mon you all, you don’t understand the opportunity we have here. You know what amazing things we could achieve with that wand right? Jafar, you could finally take revenge on that hood rat, Alladin. Cruella, you could gather all the dogs you please and make the best clothing money can buy. I could finally find that stupid Aurora and destroy her parents once and for all. How dare they—” Maleficent stopped herself with a cough, “I digress. We’d all be free, at least, instead of confined to this blasted prison. You can’t tell me that doesn’t sound good.” Maleficent finished, trying to sound amicable instead of sounding like her patience was wearing thin (which it really was). She took everyone’s silence as agreement.

“Good,” She uttered, slapping her hands together, “cause I’ve already agreed on all of your behalf’s and you leave first thing tomorrow morning. Now, where did I put that blasted—”

“Spell book?” Grimhilde asked with a smirk as she gestured to the breadbin. Maleficient rushed over, excitedly dusting off all the floor and dust.

“The safe! Of course! What’s the damn combination, oh for fu—Gaston!” she sounded exasperated, and turned, batting her eyes at the man, “Oh Gaston, you’re so strong. Won’t you please just help a girl out?” Mal gagged, while all the other children just looked extremely uncomfortable. Gaston took the bait anyway, swaying up to Maleficent and leaning over her as he wacked the bin causing it to pop open. “Thanks, big guy,” she smiled, biting her lip ever so slightly.

“Mom! Stop it please!” Mal groaned, extremely horrified. She pushed past the two, sending Gaston a cold glare as she grabbed the spell book. “This for me?” Maleficient smiled, evily.

“Hide, transform and replace. Disguise the magic, to suit the King’s taste.” She sang, and the book morphed into a manifesto reading ‘Goodness 101’. Mal frowned down at it.

“Ew,”

“Oh darling I know, anyway, that’s about as much help as I can offer so shoo everyone, go get packed. Shoo shoo! And remember, you leave first thing tomorrow morning!” and with a flourish of green smoke and bats, for some reason, Maleficent was gone.

“God, she’s so extra,” Mal murmured before popping her gum and gesturing with her head towards the exit, “C’mon then, let’s bounce.”

___

Gil sucked in a breath as he pried open the window into Harry’s room. After a while he’d gotten better at the whole sneaking thing, the first couple of times, he’d woken up the whole Hook family and he’d even accidentally broken into CJ’s room once. That wasn’t easy to explain. Luckily, he seemed to amuse Harry’s father more than he pissed him off so he never really felt threatened or too worried of repercussions upon sneaking over.

He’d left his case at home, knowing that it would create a lot more noise than he needed, he just hoped his family would leave it alone, if only for the night. By the time he was fully in the room Harry, thankfully, hadn’t stirred. Gil wanted to spend his last night with him, but he didn’t want to have to explain anything, he knew Harry wouldn’t like him going somewhere where he couldn’t protect him and Auradon definitely fell into that category.

He pried of his boots and tried to make himself as comfortable as possible in the corner of Harry’s room, wishing he could get into bed with him but not quite sure how the other boy would react. Usually Harry was fine with Gil’s show of affection but sometimes he’d react so unexpectedly and Gil would freeze out of shock, not used to his boyfriend pushing him away so coldly. He looked over at the sleeping Harry and willed away the tears that he felt rising up. VK’s don’t cry but that didn’t mean leaving Harry behind for God-knows-how-long would be easy.

“That was a real long talk,” Gil startled dropping his jacket in shock and looking up to find Harry awake if not a little dishevelled and sitting up. He yawned, “Did ye really think ah wouldn’t hear ye come in? You’re aboot as dainty as a Bull.”

“Thanks?” Gil said uncertain, even half dead, Harry could still roll out insults. “I just wanted to see you.” Gil admitted quietly, looking down at his fingers as his nerves got the better of him

“What did Maleficent say? Did she dae something tae ye?” Harry inquired, not quite awake enough to be his usual protective self but getting there.

“No, it’s just. We’ve all— all six of us that, um, Maleficent talked to have been, uh, invited to… to go to Auradon for a… um, a ‘second chance’.” He admitted, Harry didn’t reply, Gil looked up to find him staring hard at his window—purposely away from Gil. “We, uh, we have to leave first thing tomorrow but don’t worry cause we have a pla—”

“So, you’re gaun then?” Harry interrupted swinging his legs off the bed and keeping his gaze focused not on Gil.

“I have no choice. I’ll be coming back, if not for anyone else then for just you. But Papa said I have to or I’m kicked out, permanently this time.”

“So what? That doesn’t matter! Ye know ye can kip wi’ me. Da wid let you if only just tae show me how shit I am daily by comparing us.”

“Harry…” Gil always hated when Harry got all self-deprecating. His father had never really seen any of Harry talents, leading the boy to believe that he had none.

“No, no, no, no,” Harry repeated over and over placing his head between his hands and his hands between his knees. He slowly rocked back and forth. Gil crawled over to the side of the bed Harry sat on, looking up at him. He grabbed his left hand, pressing a soft kiss to it.

“Harry! C’mon…” The older boy’s eyes shot down to meet Gil’s and he grabbed a fistful of Gil’s shirt drawing the smaller boy up to press their lips together. Harry drew back after a moment, panting but kept their foreheads pressed together.

“Don’t leave me,” he whispered, voice unusually vulnerable. Gil’s throat felt like it was closing in, constricting, “I don’t know what I’ll do withoot ye, please Gil, please.” Harry whispered looking directly into Gills eyes. The younger boy had to close his eyes and look away, there was no way he could deny Harry anything when he was looking so raw and vulnerable, not when he kept looking at Gil with those eyes.

“Harry, don’t do this… not now. I swear I’ll come back, we have a plan. We’ll all be free and we can be together and happier. Don’t you wanna be happy? Don’t you want us to be happy?” Gil pulled back, clutching Harry’s left hand in both of his hands. He hoped his eye got across how pleading he was in that moment but Harry just looked away and Gil could tell he was giving up.

“Ah don’t deserve happiness, ah don’t even deserve you, that’s why you’re leaving. I knew this wood happen eventually.”

“Harry…” He started, leaning up aiming to place a soft kiss on Harry lips before he was suddenly pushed away.

“No!” Harry rolled away from Gil and reached for his hook knocking over half the stuff on his desk in a loud crash and holding it out towards Gil between trembling fingers. “Get out!” Gil froze up, shocked, even as CJ ran into the room moments later to help defend her brother. Confused as to why he was threatening Gil (his best friend as far as she knew) and half-asleep but still supportive of Harry she held out her sword at him and gestured towards the window.

“Ye heard th’ man, oot!” Gil sent Harry one last pleading look with no response from the older boy before he clenched his fists, set his face and turned away

“Fine, whatever,” he said scowling, “To think I was gonna come back for you,” Gil shook his head, jumping out of the window, foregoing his shoes and running to spend the night at Ant’s instead.

CJ sighed exhausted when Gil finally left and dropped her sword, glaring over at her older brother. She blew the hair away from her face with a huff and eyes him up.

“Care tae tell me whit th’ hell that wis?”

“Nae,” Harry frowned at the window where Gil just was, still shakily holding his shook out in front of him, and thought that he may have, maybe, overreacted a little.

 

___

Mal and Evie walked back to their hideout with arms linked as the boys followed slowly behind them. Evie seemed a bit too excited about the prospect of being sent away to a land filled with Princess and Princesses and didn’t even deflate when Mal reminded her that hoe-ing out probably wasn’t as popular in Auradon as it was on the Isle. Carlos, on the other hand, hadn’t stopped whining to Jay about the likely hood of them being eaten by dogs since they left their parents’ lair.

“What if they have dogs at the actual school, to like protect them from villains like us! Dude, we’d die on day one. I bet it’s a trap. It totally has to be, otherwise why would they invite us over now? 20 years after this Island—hold on, no prison, this prison was created. It’s just—”

“Geez Carlos, worry much?” Mal joked, briefly looking over her shoulder at the younger boy effectively ending his speech. Evie threw a rock at an inconspicuous looking sign, revealing the entrance to their hideout. They all laughed and bounded up the stairs, ignoring Carlos’ cries denying his apparent worry. Evie rolled her eyes as the younger boy tried to explain himself while she and Mal waited against the frame for Jay to unlock the door.

As soon as they were let in, Evie zipped around the room grabbing various clothes and accessories she knew she couldn’t do without and carefully packing them into a decently sized suitcase. The rest of them did vaguely the same but with less poise and more shoving. Jay seemed to be working on his basketball skills by balling up his clothes and throwing them into his case from across the room. Carlos couldn’t seem to find anything worth packing as even though he was making a complete mess of the room, his case remained empty whilst Mal was trying to spell her stuff into her bag- which was a slow-going task due to the distinct lack of magic on the Isle. Evie looked around and sighed deciding to help Carlos first once she was done.

Seeing as their home life wasn’t the… best it could be, the gang had all but fully moved into their little mini apartment. They each had enough stuff there for it to classify as a home, at least to them. They didn’t have it that bad in the big picture, a lot of Isle kids were worse off than them. As far as abuse went, being ignored and underappreciated was nowhere near as bad as being mistreated and underfed

At least they all got a bed at home, Evie wasn’t sure but from the little Gil had told her, she imagined he spent most nights sleeping outside or on the floor. If you really thought about it, they were quite lucky. Evie reasoned that Gil must be as excited as her to go to Auradon but for completely different reasons; he’d get a bed whilst Evie was searching for royalty. The thought made her feel spoilt, which was ridiculous considering her life.

“Guys, are we really going through with this?” Jay asked once they were all packed, he sat on the couch fiddling with a rubix cube, “We’re really going to go live with a bunch of snobby, preppy, goody-two-shoes’” the group all shared an unsure look.

“It’s not like we have a choice, it’s this or death by angry parents.” Mal countered, tenderly stroking her (mother’s) spell book. “Plus, the sooner we go and get this done, the sooner we can come back.” She finished with a shrug. Evie sulked at everyone’s mellow attitude before she got an idea, she sent Mal a smirk that said ‘wait for this’ before turning back to Jay.

“Isn’t that Antonia’s Rubix Cube?” She asked sweetly pretending not to see the answering scowl Jay sent her, “Or Antony’s, I mean.”

“Well, yea it was. She—He gave it to me because, and I quote, ‘I’m all brawn and no brains and that’ll be no good to me in Auradon’.” The group shared a laugh and Evie was happy to have lifted everyone’s spirits.

“Ant is so funny. Hey, why didn’t she come back with us?” Carlos asked, Ant wasn’t always here like they were but he had left a decent amount of stuff here from his occasional visits. “And why didn’t she feel like she could tell us that she wasn’t a she… or he wasn’t a she. You know what I mean!”

“Well, it’s the Isle, you never know how people will react.”

“I know, It’s just, I’ve been calling him a her for all this time. I don’t know a lot but that must have been really shitty for him.” Carlos frowned, as if he was regretting every action leading to this moment. Just as Evie spoke up to comfort him, Mal interrupted.

“He told us though,” she said dismissively, there was a short silence within which Jay shot her a disbelieving look. “Okay, he told Evie.” She ammended, “But he would have told me alone, I’m sure. I am a very trustworthy and reliable person.”

“Sure…” Jay said, not ready for a fight, “so is that what ‘girl talk’ is? Sitting discussing sexuality and whatnot, cause if so, I’m down for some of that.” Carlos couldn’t stop his laughter at the ludicrous statement.

“Really? If you think it will let you know which girls won’t sleep with you because they’re gay. Then, all of a sudden, you’re down for girl talk.”

“Oh sweet, young Carlos, Just because they’re gay doesn’t mean they won’t sleep with me.”

“Why? Cause you’re a girl?”

“Why cause you’re a—” Jay mimicked before lunging for Carlos, the younger boy yelped, taking off across the room. Just as Mal was about to put an end to their bickering, they were interrupted by a voice calling up from their entrance.

“Evie!” It was Gil, Evie looked around at her friends, confused, but sighed in annoyance when she was met with less than interested looks from all her friends,

“Don’t look too excited guys,” She whispered just as Gil said, “Evie are you up there?” The blue-haired girl ran over to the little tannoy system they had made and pulled the lever (KRONK).

“Yeah Gil what’s up?” She spoke into the little receiver.

“Harry and I broke up.” The smaller boy admitted quietly, Gil had decided to tell Evie anyway, they’d always been close even before school and even though Gil chose Uma over Mal, he still stayed in contact with Evie.

“Uh…” Evie started, glancing around her at her three best friend who all shared a look of such pure shock that in any other situation would be hilarious, but Evie had no idea how Gil would feel about accidently coming out to three people, especially when he had only just really told her. In her hesitance she realised Gil had taken that as a sign to keep talking

“I didn’t want to bother you but Ant was having a really deep chat with his Ma so I couldn’t stay there, it’s fine if I can’t stay I just—”

“Ummm, I’m kind of not alone Gil,” She cut him of quickly, sending her friends a look that she hoped said ‘don’t make a big deal out of this’.

“Oh,” The younger boy fell quiet and Evie was sure he was curling in on himself, embarrassed, probably blushing. She could tell this would be super awkward.

“Yea, um.” She pulled a different lever and heard the tell-tale screeching of the gate opening up for Gil, “you should probably come up,” She decided.

“Yeah, um, yeah I guess.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> hi all. this is kinda unedited i really only posted it so ya'll knew i wasn't dead. kinda lookinf for a beta but i will eventually edit it when uni gives me a break lmao. thanks for reding this shit.
> 
> Summary:  
> Ben’s proclamation  
> Gil background  
> Uma and Mal Fight  
> Maleficent informs kids of auradon  
> Maybe some jay/carlos/evie background  
> Gil and Harry talk/break up


	2. 2. A Wondrous Place

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _"Just put it on, Mal, don't be so dramatic," Evie chastised, already in hers and putting her hair into a braided ponytail "we can't come across as suspicious by not following their rules." She checked herself out in the mirror._
> 
> _"Surely by not learning that stupid dance we've already disobeyed them," Mal reminded with a scoff as she shoved the thing on over her underwear angrily, they eyed them both in the mirror, she shrugged. “At least we look hot.” Evie just laughed, putting her arm around Mal jovially and leading her out of the changing room to where the team was standing._
> 
> _There were a bunch of girls standing around in uniform, chatting, behind what looked like a judge’s table and three girls sitting at the table, probably getting ready to judge. Audrey sat furthest to the left and smiled at the two, sat next to her was an extremely hot girl with long curly brown hair and banging tits. Though Mal was so not staring._
> 
> _“Mal you’re staring at her boobs” Evie whispered and Mal stomped on her foot,_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> //lmao. just realised my updates are gonna be hella slow. uni is roasting me over an open flame. pls send help//

The morning came, and the five children walked toward the bridge in a sombre mood, like relatives attending a funeral. They had all had a rough night, the majority of it spent trying to make Gil feel better without him actually telling them exactly what happened (though that was mostly Evie).

As they approached, they noticed Ant handing his bags over to a man in a suit by a limo… _fancy_. He looked like his night had been just as rough, if not worse; it’s not likely he was fine with leaving his mother behind, alone. Ant was in a completely different position to the rest of them, of course they all ‘loved’ their parents… to an extent but it was a _specific_ kind of love, it was different. Ant and Anastasia had something distinct; something good. Being at their house, it almost felt like they were normal and not prisoners being punished for their parents’ actions.

It felt nice.

Evie couldn’t imagine the depth of Ant’s sadness at having to leave that behind, even at the prospect of a better life, especially with the chance that he might come not back. If she had the life that Ant had, Evie didn’t think she’d risk it, not for anything.

The sound of feet dragging across the tarmac caught her attention and she blinked out of her thoughts, upon looking over she was unsurprised to see that Gil was lagging behind, distracted. She sighed, pulling him forwards to keep up with everyone else.

“He’ll show up just begging you to forgive him; for whatever it was. I swear on it.” she had said, trying to get Gil to stop looking so glum.

“It’s almost like that time when Jace got mad at me for calling his dad a shit henchman and ‘dumped’ me. He came crawling back a day later.” Mal said helpfully, “I mean, I didn’t take him back but the begging for forgiveness part is the same. Hey! sleep on it… again, maybe you won’t even want him back” She added, a bit less helpfully. Evie shot her a look that she hoped relayed her pleas for Mal to shut up.

“I just, I kinda also didn’t mean to come out to so many people,” Gil admitted quietly, “so maybe don’t tell anyone?” He phrased it as a question, almost as if he thought the other four would disagree. Jay couldn’t help but laugh at that. Who would they tell?

“Don’t worry bro, your secret is safe with us,”

Their bags were all placed into the trunk of the limo with their parents getting their last ~~demands~~ goodbyes in and the crowd jeering at the driver as he helped with their luggage. Pretty soon they were all sorted; cases in the car and rucksacks (“um, this is an Isle Original 2014, Suede look, structured—” “Alright, Evie, pass over your _fancy_ rucksack then!” Evie scowled as the rest of the teenagers giggled, but relucted handed it over anyway) being held. There was no sign of Harry, even though Gil was pretty sure he saw CJ standing in the crowd watching with a glare. He tried his best not to be upset about it.

They all piled into the limo, elbowing and kicking as they bagsied seats and rolling their eyes when they heard their parents calling out to them one last time.

“Don’t forget the plan, Mal!”

“Bring back some gold!”

“Get me a dog! A big one!”

“Bag yourself a Royal, Darling!”

 “Just have fun!” the groaning of their parents at Anastasia for her relentless ‘goodness’ faded slightly as the limo began moving.

Ant smiled sadly as he watched the city fade, leaving behind the only family he’d ever know. He hoped his mother would be alright. All they had was each other, he couldn’t believe he’d been convinced to leave her. How would she cope? He should probably go back, yeah, he should head back immediately! They needed to stop the car, he had to get out and—

“Ant, you’re doing this for her, remember?” Evie said, interrupting his inner ramblings. “Everything will be okay, you’ll come back to her. Once we have the wand, you can do anything you want.” Ant tore his gaze from the rear windshield, focusing instead on his locket. He shrugged, aiming for nonchalance before being conveniently distracted by the spread of sweets across from him. Evie rolled her eyes at the typical behaviour before looking over at Gil who sat sadly in the corner making serious eye contact with his frayed gloves and sighed. When did she become the mum of this group?

“I’m sorry Gil, I really thought he would—woah!” The limo lurched forward suddenly, throwing Jay and Carlos off their seats mid-chocolate fight.

“What the hell was that?” Ant groaned as he cradled his head and helped Evie sit up straight from when he’d accidentally knocked into her. Mal kicked open the weird window at the top of the limo and stuck her head out,

“Oh you have got to be kidding me?” she ground her teeth together. Uma stood, smirking atop the hood of the car, her crew dotted around behind her. Mal pulled herself up so she could rest her forearms on the hood of the vehicle and leaned forwards batting her eyes “Jealous?” She asked mockingly, gesturing down at the limo. Uma rolled her eyes.

“As if we’re here for you, _mugu_. I’m doing someone a favour.” Just then, the limo door clicked open and Mal sunk back in after one final glare. She was not expecting to see a worried looking Harry peering in.

“Hey,” he said, looking directly at Gil, “Wanna… talk?”

“So you can wave your hook at me again, no thanks?” Gil muttered back bitterly, and the kids didn’t even bother trying to hide their shock. They couldn’t even imagine what would have warranted Harry hooking Gil, or threatening to? Even without knowing the pair were dating, it was obvious they were extremely close—it wasn’t like Harry to turn on any of the few people he called friends.

“Gil…” Everyone in the car was slowly getting more uncomfortable. The tone of his voice suggested that this was not a conversation anyone was meant to overhear, but still Gil sat, arms crossed in the corner of the car and they weren’t about to help Harry convince him.

“What do you want, Hook?” Jay broke the silence, shifting so he was slightly covering Gil from Harry’s view. They may not have been the closest of friends but Gil had never done anything that called for any of his aggression so he felt like he couldn’t just leave him to flounder. Additionally, Gil had just admitted that Harry had threatened him, which none of them had known previously. He was like 15, it could in no way be construed as a fair fight; so, evil or not, Jay wouldn’t stand for that.

“None of yer business,” Harry said, immediately on the defence “I was talking t’Gil,”

“Well, it seems like he doesn’t want to talk to you, you little—” Jay begun to rise, and Gil revaluated how angry he really was. He _had_ been sulking the whole morning, but that was just because he was upset and hoping Harry would come for him, he didn’t actually want a fight to break out. He also really didn’t want the driver to decide not to take them, or worse, leave him behind if he ended up causing a fight. He considered just sucking it up and talking to Harry. If the other boy had tried to leave like that without telling Gil he’d feel pretty miffed as well.

“Jay, it’s alright,” He said quietly, interrupting what was sure to become a fight, “I’ll be good for five minutes.”

“Yeah, step daun. guard dog,”

“Harry, stop that.” He snapped, glaring at the older boy and the group was shocked to see that Harry actually complied, looking almost sheepish. Harry didn’t often show emotion, so it was weird seeing him go through so many within the space of five minutes. Mal felt like she should have caught the moment on video.

Gil knocked on the partition and it rolled down.

“Are we okay to wait just five more minutes?” He asked. The guy looked up from his phone, not even phased by the pirate standing in front of his windscreen, he laughed.

“Kid, you can wait all day if you want, I get payed by the hour.” And with that Gil, super gracefully, exited the limo. Ant leaned toward the front, seeing an opportunity to learn more about Auradon from this man

“So, what will we—” The guy rolled the partition back up making direct eye contact with Ant as he did so.

“That was rude...” Ant decided as the group all sniggered as how heartlessly he had shut him down.

“I like that guy,” Evie muttered, and they fell into laughter at Ant’s expense once again.

 

“So, uh, M’sorry. Aboot last night, I mean.” Harry stated once Gil was out and standing beside him. Gil rolled his eyes.

“Yea I figured that was what you were on about.”

“I just…” Harry’s eyes slid over to his crew who were pretending not to listen in, but definitely were, and Gil narrowed his eyes. He knew this was Harry’s chance to choose between him and his reputation and although he was fine with being a secret before, currently he was pissed. He didn’t think he’d just roll over and take it if Harry picked them over him once again. “God, Gil, this is fucked. Ah didn’t like th’ fact that ye were leaving me okay? ‘n’ I didn’t believe ye when ye said you’d come back, why would ya? Ye’d just tried to sneak off and weren’t even goan tell me…” Gil stayed silent, staring at the other boy with crossed arms, “So yeah, if ye still want this relationship then I’m in, fully, nae more hiding, um,” and with only a moment hesitation Harry pulled the younger boy in for a kiss.

In front of everyone.

Gil’s brain short-circuited, and he instantly forgot all of his anger, he was going to forgive him anyway, there was no point in prolonging it. He grabbed into Harry’s jacket tightly, leaning up unto his toes, trying to give back as good as he was getting. Till he was pressed against the side of the limo and the breath was pushed out of him, he gasped into Harry’s mouth, pressing closer and briefly forgetting his surroundings.

Then they heard the tapping. The front window rolled down and the driver stuck his head out.

“As much as we’re all enjoying the show, you’re denting my ride. So maybe hurry this all up. Some of us have lives to get back to.” He disappeared once again, and the Wharf rats hooted, cheering Harry on jovially. Gil blushed, realising he’d just made out with Harry in front of a lot of people. He wasn’t sure if the Wharf rats would ever look at him the same again.

“Wow,” Harry uttered, pressing their foreheads together and finding Gils eyes. He smiled “he’s mean. I like him.”

Gil couldn’t help but smile back.

___

Ben scratched his neck nervously as he waited with Audrey at the entrance to Auradon Prep in anticipation of the six children from the Isle. His suit felt ridiculously large. Some rational part of his brain reasoned that, since it was made with his measurements, it was likely a perfect fit but that didn’t change how it felt; and he _felt_ ridiculous.

Behind them were The Band™, Fairy Godmother and a few other students who were excited to be allowed out of their last period of the day to watch the arrival. The arrival that he had orchestrated, fought for and planned to a T. The arrival that was fully his idea and would be fully his fault if he failed.

Oh Hades.

Ben realised he was now scratching his arm and stopped himself—can’t wrinkle the suit. He couldn’t seem to stop fidgeting; although he was extremely nervous, so that may have been why. This could be the start of a new era, one for the history books. It would be momentous… so long as Ben didn’t screw it up. He inhaled deeply.

No pressure.

Exhale.

“Why are you so skittery?” Audrey whispered to him, still smiling out at the empty road like a professional. Ben snuck a glance over at her. She looked perfect, it was ridiculously unfair. Sometimes he felt she would have been a better suited heir. She had the whole ‘acting like a monarch’ thing (“Etiquette, Ben” Audrey would later correct,) down to a T. She was a natural and her performance was only heightened when she was stood next to Ben.

Because he was _not_ a natural.

“Eyes on the road Prince, FGM is right behind us.” She warned, and Ben groaned. He’d messed up again and of course she’d noticed. He turned back to smile at the empty road just as he felt a light tug on a strand of his hair. He knew it was FGM scolding him for moving.

“Oh, wait, let me guess, you dreamed of him again?” Audrey chimed in, turning to face Ben a teeny bit more. He didn’t dare look over again though “I can like feel your nerves from over here.” Her tone was slightly too excited for it to come across as a caring inquisition and her smile when Ben stuttered instead of giving an immediate response was border-line sinister.

“Shut up Audrey, they’ll be here any minute.” Ben murmured back, keeping up his smile towards the still empty road.

“You did, didn’t you?” She responded, undeterred, before gasping and turning fully, only for a short moment, “Was it a sex dream?” she asked in a scandalised whisper.

“Audrey!” Ben broke his smile and looked over at her, horrified. He could feel the blush uncontrollably spreading across his face

“Oh my God it totally was.” She decided, her smile a bit haughtier now, “Saucy.” Ben also turned back to the road, face still burning, slightly more flustered and totally more embarrassed than he had been five minutes ago. She was wrong, it hadn’t been a sex dream. No sex at all happened in his dream… that night. Not to say that Ben had ever had sex dreams about this strange boy that he didn’t know, as that would be inappropriate. Very inappropriate.

He was still in a state of shock in all fairness, it had only been a week since he’d put forward his idea to his parents and so he was surprised that his request had been fulfilled so quickly and the children were already coming over. He was also surprised that they had all agreed to come, half the reason he picked six children was in case any cancelled, so he’d still have a decent number of volunteers. He hoped he didn’t overestimate how many new children they could accommodate.

In terms of controlling them, not in terms of space.

There was more than enough space. The school welcoming team had managed to clear out three rooms for the Villain Kids (now known to the majority of the students of Auradon as the VK’s): One Girls room and two Boys room. One boy would have to room on their own whilst one girl would have to room with Audrey but it was the best they could do on such short notice. Audrey was nice enough when she wanted to be but if threatened she could definitely sass back, so Ben figured that everything should be okay.

He needed this to work. He knew he was taking a massive risk by going so large when deciding on his first decree. However, his dad had done pretty much the same when he was first crowned king of the USA. His first decree was to suggest that all the villains should be put away on an island to be rehabilitated and that had made history. If Ben was going to follow in his footsteps, especially when adapting one of his father’s rules, he needed to take big risks.

“I just feel like I’m going to mess this up somehow. All the dreams I’ve had and how much I’ve built it up to my parents with the talk of reconciliation. I just feel like I could either make-or-break this situation you know, I want to do right by everyone. Especially those poor kids.” He admitted quietly, kicking his feet. Then he stopped kicking his feet because his shoes had been gifted to him by Cinderella personally. Looking down at his feet he swore quietly, they were scuffed, “and now Cindy’s going to kill me,”

“Look, Ben, I know I give you a lot of shit sometimes—”

“All the time,”

“most of the time,” Audrey amended, “But we’re life partners. Don’t ever feel like you can’t tell me stuff. Also regarding all you just said. That’s bullshit.”

“Audrey,” he chastised. The dark-haired girl just rolled her eyes. The pair had been best friends their whole life, although they didn’t have much choice in the matter, Aurora and Belle had been joint at the hip ever since the great rap battle of ’96 where they had to ‘team up to show Snow White who was boss’. Audrey and Ben had tried their luck at dating not too long ago but it didn’t go too well, they were super compatible as best friends but in a relationship, they just clashed way too much – and there was no romantic attraction, Ben had many sexuality crises when they were together, putting his lack of attraction to her down to him being gay before they had a conversation and realised she felt exactly the same. Safe to say, they broke up soon after.

“You know it is. You’re going to be a great king and a fair ruler. You’ve already been an amazing prince. Everyone loves you, so that’s already half the battle won when you’re trying to be a royal. If there is anyone in this whole Realm who can unite good and evil, it’s you, Ben, never doubt that. And when all is said and done, no matter the outcome, I’ll be by your side… to help take credit.”

“How do you manage to be wise, pretty and annoying at the same time?” Ben asked, momentarily breaking his steady eye contact with the road to shoot Audrey a tired look. She shrugged.

“I multitask, heard it’s a skill not too many boys possess… oh look, our ‘friends’ are here!” Ben turned back to the road, outraged that he’d turned away for one second and missed the arrival. He felt a sharper tug on his hair and accepted it, he deserved that. The students behind them broke out into cheers as the marching band boomed. It was beginning.

Ben hoped he knew what he had gotten himself into.

___

 

When the VK’s arrived in Auradon, they didn’t even realise the limo had stopped. Evie and Gil were lost in conversation about the juicy details of his relationship whilst Carlos and Ant valiantly fought over the last Reese’s Cup and Mal was busy telling Jay off for trying to steal the radio out of the car by hiding it under his t-shirt. So, when the driver did open the door all the students waiting outside saw and heard was Ant and Carlos tumbling out, a Reese’s cup rolling over to some blond boy’s feet and Mal yelling exasperated “yeah, they probably _are_ all stupid, but even _they’ll_ notice you stealing a _bloody radio_!”

Silence fell

“Is the door open?”

“When did we stopped moving?”

“God that driver is such a dick, I love it!”

There was rustling and mumbling then the remaining four children also tumbled out of the limo, trying to keep an air of calm and not the complete disarray they actually were.

Another silence, which stretched on for a couple moments too long to be comfortable as Ant and Carlos tried to get themselves stood up whilst pulling the other down – which wasn’t working. Evie took a moment to roll her eyes at their predictable behaviour and placed a hand on her hip,

“We’ve been here all of 2 seconds and you’re already embarrassing me,” she hissed through gritted teeth and the two boys froze, chocolate spread over their clothes, Evie frowned in disgust, “ew” was all she said, moving to stand next to Mal. She paused to glare at Jay until he sighed and pulled out some walkie-talkies from his trousers, chucking them back into the limo with a groan.

“I never get to have any fun,” He murmured, sulking, and Evie rolled her eyes harder.

Children, all of them.

Mal just stood, shocked at the amount of people outside waiting for them and was that… a band? She frowned, barely holding back a shudder, this was gonna be the most difficult thing she’d ever have to do.

There was a sharp pain in her side and she immediately turned to glare at Evie’s elbow.

“Fuck you too.”

“You have to smile Mal, we’ve got incoming and need to look rehabilitated.” Mal just stared trying and failing to be mad. Evie’s smile didn’t falter one bit, even as she told Mal off, she was basically royal blood already. Mal had to admit it was impressive.

Then the blonde boy clapped his hands together with a smile,

“Welcome to Auradon Prep!” He boomed taking a couple steps towards them. The boy walked along greeting each of the VK’s, by name, surprisingly. He tried to shake Jay’s hand, but the boy just amiably punched him in the shoulder in lieu of a formal greeting. He then held out his hand at Gil for a shake and seemed taken aback when the boy not only shook his hand but also pulled him in for a half hug slapping him on the back.

Mal accepted his handshake with only a bit of reluctance because they were supposed to be acting normal and not attracting heaps of attention to themselves, like some people were. She hoped her smile didn’t looked as pained as it felt. Evie also shook his hand but then didn’t let go, she shot him an expectant look, as if she was waiting on something, then turned her hand over slightly; encouraging as Ben hesitantly kissed the back of her hand, gauging her reaction. She seemed sated.

Ben looked over to where Ant and Carlos had finally finished fighting and froze up, it was him.  That was the boy from his visions. The same hair, same freckles, Ben’s eyes trailed down his figure, same… _everything_. The boy from Ben’s vision was standing right there in the flesh and Ben just froze, he didn’t know what to do.

“Uh,” Audrey piped up from behind him, what a life saver, he’d almost forgotten that she would be shaking hands alongside him. Ben needed to remind himself to thank her, maybe send flowers or something? She was a literal goddess and he didn’t appreciate her nearly enough. “I thought you were supposed to be a girl?” was what she said. Okay screw that. Audrey was a menace, Ben would never thank her, ever. No flowers for Audrey

He nodded anyway, taking the bait, and turned to face the last boy.

“Yes, uh, I picked an Antonia Tremaine,” he asked confusedly, actually remembering that fact. The boy bristled in surprise, his smile faltering.

“Antonia Tremaine doesn’t exist.” The way he said it was so defiantly certain that Ben stepped down, nodded his agreement. Audrey nodded too. It was the 21st century. If Ant was trans, Ben could keep up with that, he just hadn’t been briefed on it. The records they’d received from the isle were not really updated often or maintained… ever…

“Whatever you say, dude,” Audrey responded with a shrug. Bloody smile still intact. Ben noticed an air of awkwardness settling over the crowd and quickly spoke up.

“Regardless, welcome! I am Prince Ben. It’s good to have you here. We aim to merge civilisation between us and the Isle so I’m glad you guys accepted as it’s the first step to helping that become a reality,” the gang remained silent, having mixed reactions to Ben’s admission.

Ant felt mainly hope, if they’re aiming to merge the island that meant his mother had a chance and maybe they didn’t have to steal the wand, maybe everything would be okay. Gil also felt hope, wondering if maybe this meant that he didn’t have to go back to his father or his borderline abusive brothers, he smiled, that would be amazing but... Harry, he’d miss Harry. He figured in the long run it wouldn’t be worth it because while he’d eventually outgrow being bullied by his family, he didn’t think he’d ever out grow loving Harry.

Evie, Carlos and Jay also felt hope, a different type of hope however, they hoped that if Ben’s plan worked, their parents would be considered good enough to come to Auradon. But on further thought, they weren’t sure if they would want to. Without instigation, they knew their parents would never choose to be good, not after all they had gone through.

Mal scowled, she knew her mother would never go for that or if she did it would be a ploy to overthrow everyone. She doubted Belle and Adam would allow her over anyway – they’d see through it in a minute and would likely stop Ben if he ever tried to help Mal. She wasn’t sure if Ben would really try that anyway, he couldn’t be that naïve.

They settled on sending him wry smiles in reply regardless.

“I don’t think my dad would go for that,” Gil said breaking the silence in an attempt to lighten the mood, Ben’s eyes widened, as if in realisation (or remembrance?)

“You’re the son of Gaston,” Gil smiled at the attention, nodding like the excited child he was but didn’t often get to act like.

“Yeah and my papa, oh, um,” he paused trying to remember, “he said to tell your Ma that he misses her, and she’ll never know what she’s missing and to tell your dad that he wished he had ended him when he had the chance.” Gil recited proudly, missing the falter in Ben’s smile.

“I will most definitely pass that on,”

“Great!” He replied, genuinely excited. Ben’s sarcasm was completely wasted on him as he stood hoping that passing on the message would get him back in his dad’s good books. He was blissfully unaware of the rest of the VK’s sniggering behind him at his obliviousness and Ben’s discomfort.

“Right so, anyway, I’d really love to stay but Audrey and I have a meeting to attend right now so Hetty and Doug can take you guys around for the tour. We will try our best to catch up with you guys before tomorrow but no promises,”

“We’ll try not to get our hopes up,” Mal replied sweetly and the VK’s sniggered again. Ben smiled tightly and gave a final wave, gesturing for them to follow him. The six turned to the… little children(?) that Ben had signalled to, who were smiling, one nervously and the other brightly, and began to walk towards them.

However, as they walked past the weird fountain thing with a statue of Adam atop it (vain much) it morphed into the form of the beast.

Carlos freaked, flailing his arms. He tumbled back at least 3 feet, falling straight into a pair of bodies and taking them both down with him.

“Ugh,” groaned Audrey, “This dress is one of a kind, Cinderella designed it, watch it nard.” She grumbled, annoyed and shoved Carlos of her. Ben flushed as the smaller boy was pushed more onto him by Audrey and tried to school his expression. Carlos couldn’t help but think that Audrey and Uma would get on like a house on fire.

“Yea if there’s one thing you should know about Audrey... don’t mess with her clothes,” He lightly pushed Carlos, who was still in shock and rose extending his arm to help the other boy up, “you should go catch up with your pals.” and they led Carlos to where the rest of the VK’s were, so he wouldn’t miss anything important.

"so, um if the three—four! Four boys can come with me" Ant rolled his eyes, "and the two girls go with Hetty. I mean luckily that works because one of the boys was supposed to room alone whilst the third girl shares with Audrey which you may not have loved." Audrey raised an eyebrow at the bit "not— not because she isn't lovely. I mean just because you don't know her and, uh, you'd rather room with people you know! I didn't mean--"

“We should probably be heading off now anyway,” Ben stated, tired smile still in place, “Audrey, shall we?” She smiled wryly, sending Doug one last unimpressed look she linked arms with the future prince.

“We shall,” Ben clapped twice, and the statue turned back before heading off with Audrey. Carlos, shocked, hesitantly clapped at the thing also.

Nothing happened.

"Right so as my idiot cousin said," Hetty said, regaining their attention and fondly rolling her eyes at Doug's rambling. "you and you with me. I will show you to your rooms and give you the girls' rules." she quickly handed out the welcome packs in her hand.  
  
"Sorry," she said when she got to Ant and handed him a pink one, "we thought you were a girl. you can use the stuff anyway, it's not too different." Her voice trailed off and she just smiled politely and handed then their time tables. They had to have around 24 contact hours a week, including free periods and study hours, which meant

“We have lessons on Sundays?”

“Only two!” Doug tried helpfully. Jay groaned.

“Kill me now.”

  
  
The tour was nice, objectively. The school was beautiful and spacious, full of stairs and decorations that were so… extra (how many portraits of the beast did they _really_ need?). It felt less like a school and more like a mansion as the gang walked down the long halls. It was it as if the stairs had stairs and by the time they reached the common room Ant was sure his legs were going to fall off.

It was there they saw Hetty with Mal and Evie, the girls were sitting around a small table, sipping from mugs. Well, Evie and Hetty were sipping and giggling whilst Mal was frowning down into the cup, sniffing it suspiciously. She sighed in relief when she noticed the boys walk in, placing her cup down and standing up.

“Look who’s here!” she exclaimed with a false smile, practically running to the group, “please save me from this inane chatter,” she whispered and then turned back to Hetty and Evie, smile intact. She was learning.

Carlos and Ant pulled faces at Evie until she relented, rolling her eyes, unimpressed in response. She downed the rest of whatever was in her cup and placed it on the table next to Mal’s full mug. She paused, smirking,

“Mal, don’t you want to finish the green tea Hetty made for you?” she asked sweetly and Mal’s smile twitched.

“Of course, I do,” she said through gritted teeth. Stomping over and bravely downing all the contents. She recoiled as if she’d just taken a shot whilst the boys watched from the door, amused. “lovely. Now can we go?” Evie barely held back her laugh.

“Sure! Lead the way Hetty.” And with that, the girls were on their way. Not before Mal paused to whisper,

“Just because it’s green doesn’t mean you should accept it. That taste’s worse than Ursula’s sludge.” She shivered, before quickly catching up to the other girls. Jay snorted whilst Ant and Carlos at least had the decency to try and pretend they weren’t laughing.

“Well, that’s the common room, I guess. Once you’re 18 you have full access to the utilities in here. Usually the door is locked, and you need a pass to get in, but on weekends, it’s a free for all. so… on we go!” Ant groaned as the walking begun again.

It wasn’t till they got to the rooms that they got a chance to rest. Ant and Carlos ran into the closest ones whilst Jay and Gil went to check out the other one.

 

Chucking his pack on the bed and flopping down, Jay sighed in bliss.  
"I could get used to this. oh wait" he pulled out a little ornament from his pocket and placed it on the bedside table, "Perfect. Now, I’m used to it."  
"When did you even steal that?" Gil asked, shocked, but also impressed. Jay just tapped his nose.  
  
  
“Woah,” Ant breathed running into the room, stroking all the surfaces he could touch, “Spacious,” Carlos flopped down unto the bed, wrapping himself in the blankets

"Dude, the way they reacted when he saw you were a boy?” He scoffed, “And Auradon claims to be all forward thinking and accepting." Carlos reeled off as the younger boy ran around the room touching basically everything in wonder and thinking about how his mother would have loved to be here. He paused, turning with a raised an eyebrow.

"Dude," Ant mocked, "he wasn't even looking at me half the time. He was looking at you; looked like you killed his mother or something— or like he was deeply in loooooove." Carlos rolled his eyes and chucked a pillow at him, assuming Ant was just trying to deter attention away from himself.

"Shut up! But seriously, like, on that note, how uh, how did you know you were a boy anyway, or like when? And why did you not tell me?" he asked, almost nonchalantly. Ant was even more shocked. He paused by the window and turned back to face Carlos, who was now sat up picking at the threads on a pillow. Just as he opened his mouth to respond Doug was knocking on the door and telling them to come along for part 2 of the tour. Carlos groaned. How was there more? What hadn't they seen?  
  
"But my poor legs," Carlos wailed into the bedsheets. Question forgotten. "I don't think I can make it."

"The quicker it's over, the sooner we get to eat dinner?" Doug reminded hopefully. Carlos shot up.

"Okay, all better now."

“After the outdoor tour,” This time it was Ant that screamed into a pillow.

The gang were unable to meet up that evening. The children of Auradon, though they seemed scared of them, also seemed super unwilling to even let then have a break. Once curfew hit, the six were too tired to even consider sneaking out to meet up and fell into their respective beds with little argument.

___

 

Come Tuesday morning, the six were all still exhausted. Mal glared at her alarm, wondering if, if she tried really, really hard, she could make it burst into flames. She concentrated all her effort, narrowing her eyes as they flashed green and… nothing.

“Fuck,” she murmured rolling over to face away from the wretched device as it wailed on,

“Maybe after a couple of Spelling classes that will actually work,” Evie muttered through a laugh and Mal turned her glare on her, eyes blazing, and mockingly repeated her from her spot on the bed.

“Anyway, hopefully we won’t be here long enough for that!” She said finally as Evie began walking around the room opening the windows, already dressed and showered it seemed. Mal hissed when a beam of light shone straight unto her face. Evie obviously had no consideration for her best friend’s current wants and needs

“How are you so cheery? It’s-” Mal checked her phone, “Holy Hades, It’s 6AM. Who even does 6AM anymore?” Evie laughed some more setting down in front of her Vanity and stroking it lovingly, Mal pulled a face of disgust.

“Well considering we didn’t get any scheming done yesterday I figured it’s best to start early today, as in, before lessons. If we hurry, we can get two hours in. Unless you want to spend extra time in Auradon.” Mal groaned, rolling over and pulling her blanket above her head, she hated when Evie was right. Fifteen minutes later, Mal was fully dressed and showered and Evie was done with her make-up and accessories. She’d downed a green tea all-in-one go and was currently trying to wake Ant while Mal was lovingly nursing a black coffee in the corner. That common room kettle was a fucking Godsend.

“I’m guessing Carlos is already up?” Gil asked as he exited the shower, the girls looked at each other guiltily, “Dude you better not be expecting me to wake him, you’re the best friends here.” Mal groaned knowing that Carlos was damn near impossible to get up and it would have been smart to wake him first, before Ant and Gil.

“We just figured that if we hold the meeting in their room and talk really loudly, he’d wake up anyway.” Gil scoffed in disbelief.

“Good luck with that.” Ant murmured getting up and shoving on a baggy hoodie atop his boxer shorts and binder. He shoved his feet into some fluffy slippers before turning and heading for the door. He stopped, blearily looking back when he realised no-one was following him

“C’mon, I though you said something about a meeting?”

“You’re not showering or changing? Ant groaned, shoving some torn leather trousers over his boxer shorts before making a tada motion with his hands

“Happy now? Let’s move it.”

Surprisingly, Carlos was already up when the four kids got there, he was pacing whilst Jay was sitting up on his bed, watching the other boy, shocked. The four children froze upon entering the room before sending Jay a confused look, he shrugged back at them, mirroring their look and mouthing ‘ten minutes’. What the hell was going on?

“Um, Carlos, what the actual hell?” The small boy looked up, startled, almost as if he didn’t realise there were even other people in the room.

“Oh, hey guys., what are you all doing here?” He didn’t seem to understand the weirdness of the situation but the rest were stunned. Carlos literally slept like the dead, there was no way he woke up on his own unless something was bothering him.

“You doing okay, dude?” Jay asked finally and Carlos seemed to realise that they all thought something was off.

“Oh, uh, yeah I just—I had a dream about dogs. You know how it is” He responded, quickly sitting down on the edge of his bed. Nobody believed him, but it was obvious that whatever was bothering him, Carlos didn’t want to talk about it.

“Okay, you know what? No time for weirdness. We’ve already wasted a day, guys. How are we gonna get this wand?”

“Okay well first we have to find out where it’s kept”

“On it!” Jay said, grabbing his.. laptop? He definitely did not have a laptop when they left the Isle. Mal rolled her eyes at the typical behaviour. It hadn’t even been 24 hours and the older boy had already stolen something of major significance.

“Someone’s gonna be looking for that” Gil pointed out in a sing song voice. Jay just shrugged rapidly typing

“Well, they’re not gonna find it,” Jay replied, mocking Gil’s tone.

“Your overconfidence is cute,” Mal said, rolling her eyes and moving over from the door to join Carlos. That seemed to jolt everyone out of their trance and they all moved to sit in various different places within the room. It was a few minutes later, after the group had delved into different mini conversations between themselves, that Jay suddenly let out a victorious ‘aha!’ he proudly turned ‘his’ laptop round to face the gang.

They couldn’t believe their luck. Of all the museums in this land (and there were a lot), the one containing the wand was barely 3 miles away.

“That’s like an hour, right?” Evie said, suddenly more excited now that they were actually getting somewhere.

“I think you mean, that’s like an hour, right?” Gil chimed in, sounding a lot more put out that Evie had, Mal rolled her eyes, once again. God, she was gonna need to chill with that, the constant rolling was giving her a headache.

 “Okay, well, that was pretty easy,” she grabbed the laptop clicking on the link and humming as she scrolled down the page. “But, look at this, their security is so high-key. How do we get in and out?”

“Let me see that?” Carlos piped up from beside her, grabbing the laptop. He proceeded to type furiously, and the screen turned black.

“Uh,” Ant started, watching from over Carlos’ shoulder but was quickly shushed. Suddenly the page began to fill with white and red text, “Uhhhh,” he repeated, louder.

“Oh yeah, I forgot you did all this hacking shit.” Mal added. Carlos hummed in response and she knew it was gonna take a while. The group (Evie, mainly) divulged into a deep, really important chat about how Ant’s roots needed touching up.

“The blond is completely bleeding into the red. You need to go darker so it’s less noticeable. I mean, you work in a Hair Salon, if Dizzy can represent surely you can too!”

“Okay Princess, I’ve got a map up, you can leave our little step-prince alone.” Carlos interrupted the conversation sliding over the laptop to reveal a flat plan of the museum’s layout along with the security passageways, emergency exits and the times of all the shift rotations.

“What the fuck?” Ant murmured peering at the screen but was quickly interrupted by Jay.

“Brilliant! This give you any ideas?” Jay said looking over at Ant. As he was the smallest (and youngest) in the group, he was the resident expert on sneaking around. He hummed (why was this becoming a thing with them?) leaning in to get a better look before laying down a plan.

“Half of us can enter through the front whilst the rest sneak in through here. Then Evie can break of and distract the guard so he’s not looking at the cameras. Find the room with the wand and get Carlos to disable or loop the cameras in the room. Disable whatever security surrounding it—because there will be lots—and grab it. Then we can go past this corridor and signal to Evie. Then we’ll sneak out the back through here.” Ant said, pointing at various pints on the map Carlos had pulled up. Ant looked up, pleased with himself but was met with five blank faces. “I’ll just—I’ll write it down, don’t worry about it.”

“Okay sweet. So, after curfew today we can all go down to the museum grab the wand and take over whilst the losers are still sleeping. Plan?” Mal concluded,

“Plan!” Everyone cheered in one.

“Solid. Now, who wants to go to the park and laugh at people exercising?”

___

 

Their first day passed by easily enough, well half of it. The school was set up, so it had: a lesson, a break, two lessons, lunch, another lesson then it was out for Evie, Carlos, Gil and Ant. Mal and Jay had slightly different structures as they were older, so they had more free time.  They had all been allocated different first lessons but after their break spent two hours in Remedial Goodness, which was… delightful.

 

“So,” Fairy Godmother’s smile was strained,

“If the answer isn’t ‘kill the baby’, ‘leave it on the tracks’ or ‘walk away’, what does that leave us with?” The kids genuinely looked confused, apart from Ant and Evie who weren’t paying attention. Ant was gazing down at his locket sadly, fingering the latch. He missed his mum, he wondered if there was any way he could contact her. Did they do phone calls to the Isle? Evie, on the other hand, was doodling designs for her new spring collection.

“Mr Tremaine, Genevieve! If you two would like to focus on the task at hand?” Ant glanced up at the board.

“It’s C. Help the baby off the tracks,” He answered, bored, before looking back at his locket.

“Yes!” FGM screeched in excitement, before clearing her throat and speaking more levelled, “That’s right Mr Tremaine. So, next question.”

“Dude, how did you know that?” Jay whispered and Mal, Carlos and Gil leaned in too. Ant looked up at them wondering if they were kidding, how were they legitimately asking…?

“How did I know what FGM would want us to do with a baby we found on train tracks….” They still stared, expectant, “that wasn’t harming it…?” he continues. Mal nodded, looking intrigued.

“It’s… obvious?”

“Just pick the one that sounds like least fun,” Evie helped, sensing that Any didn’t know how to explain it, and the rest of the group nodded like something deep had just been revealed to them. Ant frowned, hitting his head on the desk, how were these his friends?

However, at the next question all their hands shot up, so at least they were learning something.

Remedial Goodness went by way too slow and as soon as it was let out and they all piled unto a lunch table outside. Mal immediately placed her head into her arms aiming to rest for the full hour. Pretending to be good was bloody hard.

She felt at peace for a few moments, then Evie had to open her freaking mouth and remind them about their try-outs in five minutes. Mal groaned, loudly.

“Kill me now,”

“It won’t be that bad!” Gil said with a shrug stirring his yogurt with his finger.

The game seemed easy enough, they had been supplied with the rule book in their welcome packs whilst the girls had been supplied with a cheer uniform (including one for ant which was hilarious).

“You know, for the ‘most good’ Land around, their rules are kinda backwards. What if I wanted to be on the cheer squad?”

“you do have the legs for it Jay,” Carlos said

“Thanks bro,” the boys laughed and divulged into conversation about what Jay’s legs would look like if they shaved it and put him in a dress.

“At least we only had to read a manual though, I saw that tape, I can’t believe you guys had to learn a whole routine,” Ant choked out through laughter,

“Oh, we didn’t.” Mal stated bored as she sat up and stole Gil’s apple. Evie mumbled her agreement between bites of her cereal bar,

“Yea, we’re gonna improvise,” she managed out, excited. The boys laughed harder.

“Man, I wish I could be there to see that,” Gil said, “Don’t reckon I’ll be too good at tourney anyway,”

“Yeah, I feel that about you too, bro,” Jay joked and Gil punched him in the shoulder

 

Try-outs went surprisingly well. The VK’s weren’t trying so-to-say but they also didn’t want to be shown up by a bunch of Princes. They all made the team easily, apart from Carlos who had just barely made in on. He was pushed over the boundary as, at one point he though he spotted a dog and pegged it so hard across the kill zone he was like a blur. Ben was set to tutor him. Carlos blushed, no-one else needed a tourney tutor. This sucked.

 

Meanwhile, Mal scowled at she glared at the cheerleading uniform laid out on her bench.

"Just put it on, Mal, don't be so dramatic," Evie chastised, already in hers and putting her hair into a braided ponytail "we can't come across as suspicious by not following their rules." She checked herself out in the mirror.

"Surely by not learning that stupid dance we've already disobeyed them," Mal reminded with a scoff as she shoved the thing on over her underwear angrily, they eyed them both in the mirror, she shrugged. “At least we look hot.” Evie just laughed, putting her arm around Mal jovially and leading her out of the changing room to where the team was standing

There were a bunch of girls standing around in uniform, chatting, behind what looked like a judge’s table and three girls sitting at the table, probably getting ready to judge. Audrey sat furthest to the left and smiled at the two, sat next to her was an extremely hot girl with long curly brown hair and banging tits. Though Mal was so not staring.

“Mal you’re staring at her boobs” Evie whispered and mal stomped on her foot,

Next to the hot girl was another girl with black hair and pale skin, like paper white. She was hot too, objectively, Mal wasn’t picky but the other girl was… damn.

 “Right,” Audrey clapped her hands together, “You guys just do the try-out routine and we’ll judge and then you’re either in or out, in a cheer squad, the more, the merrier.”

“Actually,” Mal smiled fakely back, “Evie and I prepared a different routine that we feel showcases a lot more of our—”

“Are you fucking kidding?” the lesser hot judge girl interrupted,

“Stella,” the hot girl chastised,

“What? They’re obviously just going to improvise as they couldn’t be bothered to learn the routine. We asked them to do one thing! One thing!”

“Stella!” Audrey said, a lot sterner before turning back to the pair, “go ahead, dance, let’s see,”

The two girls signalled for the track to start and broke out into pretty synchronised improvised cheer routine. (Based of this bit till the chorus starts https://youtu.be/Mw5LHUf-4LY?t=34s) They were low key mocking the basic moves that all cheerleaders seemed to do but also just having fun, bouncing moves off each other. Once they were done, the girls behind the judging table cheered and Audrey and the hot girl clapped politely.

“Are you freaking kidding me? That sucked,” Stella said, her reaction a stark contrast form everyone else’s.

“It wasn’t that bad, and they were obviously improvising so with how in sync and on beat they were it was actually pretty good. You couldn’t do better at the drop of a hat so they’re on. They’ll become good with practice.” There was a moment of silence as everyone waiting for the inevitable blowing up of Stella. She silently fumed for a couple moments before standing and slamming her palms on the table, eyes blazing red and fixed on Evie.

“For real!? Yeah I could and I will, right now. Let’s go Maisie!” Audrey sighed and the Mal and Evie stood, confused my what was going on. A smaller girl, eagerly stepped round the table and stood by Stella.

“I assume this happens a lot,” Evie murmured to Mal

“Are you guys okay with that?” The hot girl asked tiredly.

“Yeah, I’m always ready to dance some more,” Evie smiled

“I’m down,” Mal shrugged. “let’s do this,”

Long story short, Mal and Evie schooled their privileged asses. Not 3 minutes passed before the whole team was applauding the VK’s ‘routine’ and Stella was growing visibly angrier. Once they were done Evie tried not to look too triumphant while Mal did no such thing. Stella was brimming with anger but tried to maintain her composure as she stormed off back into the crowd, ‘Maisie’ in tow

“Don’t worry about her, Stella is a bit high maintenance and all about being the ‘best of them all’ like her mom. I think seeing you,” she gestured at Evie, “brought it all out. Well done though. Nice to see someone show finally put her in her place. I think I’m going to like you two. Everyone around here is a spineless snob.” She said nonchalantly, as if she was just talking about weather and not insulting her friends and relatives. She smiled then turned around to begin the cheer practise for the next game.

___

 

Once practice was over, Evie and Mal made their way from the field back to the dorm rooms laughing about how much they had shown Stella up with that impromptu dance-off. As fun as cheerleading had been, Evie didn’t feel it was very her, too much physical exertion. Evie shuddered as she imagined herself with muscles, no good for that cropped halter top she’d been designing in her head for the past week. She wasn’t sure about Mal though; the other girl had seemed very _interested_ in the cheerleading practice.

“So you reckon you’ll stay on?” She asked, sending Mal a sly look, “You seemed to like it very much,” Mal pursed her lip, knowing she had been caught looking.

“Sue me, girls in Auradon are hotter than the ones on the Isle. You looked too!”

“I’m surprised you even noticed me _glance_ at her since you didn’t stop staring.”

“Shut up!” Mal laughed nudging Evie with her shoulder till the other girl started laughing too. Mal didn’t plan on joining the cheer team, however Penny did make it seem more enjoyable, maybe she’d ask Audrey to be on the reserve team, that way she could stare for hours, with very little effort on her part and it wouldn’t seem weird.

The pair ambled along slowly, going over the details of their planned heist this afternoon, till suddenly Evie felt Mal tense up in her arm then a soft voice called out to them. Of course, it was Penny. Evie shuddered, how did Mal always do that? It was creepy.

“Hey Mal wait up! I was just wondering if you wanted to go grab some Milkshakes before curfew.” She asked, clutching her bedazzled gym bag to her chest nervously, “or not, like, don’t feel pressured.” Evie was tempted to laugh, this morning the nicest greeting they got was when the student didn’t run away, maybe after showing Stella up people were a lot less scared of them.

“You’re not afraid I’m gonna like magic you or make you evil?” Mal asked sarcastically, in her element when sassing other people, but the girl didn’t back down, instead she just laughed pushing Mal on the shoulder lightly. Mal frowned down at the spot she had touched in confusion and Evie’s interest spiked.

“Actually yeah! I’m tired of being good and I figured you’d be up for plotting world domination together,” Evie choked out a shocked laugh, stunned that she could give as good as Mal was giving her. Said girl was baffled. Penny just laughed at the look on Mal’s face before continuing, “Nah, I’m kidding, It’s just I know all about misunderstanding. My mom was Pandora, you know, the one with the box. They thought she was evil for ages. Not cool.”

Mal had heard of that. Pandora was the only villain who’d ever left the Isle. Everyone thought he had escaped. It was crazy to think that Auradon had willingly brought her back “That’s amazing. What changed their minds?” Is what Mal meant to say. What actually came out was,

“Oh, well then, um.” She looked over at Evie for help. The blue-haired girl just smiled grabbing Mal’s bag with a wink.

“You go! The boys and I will wait and we’ll have the meeting later. Have fun!” Evie said sincerely, putting emphasis on the word meeting, before her gaze was caught by a specific blond boy leaving the boy’s changing room, “But if you’ll excuse me, I have a prince to woo, now!” And with that she was off, leaving Mal to deal with Penny alone.

“Snake,” Mal murmured glaring at her retreating figure. Penny blinked.

“What?”

“Oh, nothing, I—let’s go!” Mal said, hoping her voice sounded vaguely calm even though she wasn’t feeling that at all.

“Chad!” Evie called out jogging to catch him before he met up with his Tourney friends, “Chad, hey.” She stood straight, trying not to pant, what the hell did Mal keep in her gym bag.

“Hey Evie,” he smiled, dazzling her, “What’s up? Great moves by the way, I didn’t know you could cheer.” She blushed, shrugging humbly as she adjusted the gym bags on her shoulder. It was hard to believe that she was talking to a real-life prince, in the flesh. She had dreamed of this ever since she was 11 and her mother had told her tales of her Prince Florian who Snow White had rudely stolen from her.

“Oh well, I dabble. So, uh, how about that Science test we’ve got coming up?” she said suggestively, taking full advantage of the single shared class they had, “I mean, I’ve only been here a day, I’ve got no clue how I’m gonna pass it.”

“Me either,” he laughed, obviously not taking the hint. Evie raised her eyebrows suggestively, her smile becoming a little strained when Chad just started back blankly.

“If only someone could help me study,” she asked, in a last-ditch attempt, voice taking the tone of a token ‘damsel in distress’ before the gears finally tuned in Chad’s head.

“Oh. Oh right, well you could come round to my room tomorrow in your Free. Its room 3C. Then we can get two solid study hours in before Practice starts. That’s enough to cover the modules, I think. Then you can borrow some of my flashcards and study over-night if you feel like you still need to.” Evie’s face lit up. Guess she was a cheerleader now.

“Great!” she exclaimed and hesitated for a moment before taking a chance and pressing a kiss to Chad’s cheek. “See you then, Chad!”

The blond stood for a moment, watching the girl run off, startled before shrugging and starting towards his friends on the other side of the field. Evie seemed nice and she’d made friends with Doug pretty easily so he assumed she was just good with people, maybe she could wingman for him with Herkie.

“Chad!” He was ripped from his thoughts as he heard footsteps running to catch up, it was Herkie, “Hey bud,” he jeered nudging Chad playfully and ruffling his hair. Chad tried not to blush.

“We still on for studying, tomorrow right?” He asked, trying to take the reins in the situation again.

“Yea sure thing bro. You know I can never take a test without meeting with my good luck charm first.”

“Shut up,” He replied bashfully, Herkie smiled proud of the reaction he got out of Chad, “Oh, by the way, I invited Evie, the new VK, figured I do my good deeds, tutor her a bit, then I’ll go up in everyone’s good books, one step closer to King, you know,” He explained, adding the last bit partially joking but also not really. Herkie laughed amicably but Chad couldn’t help but wonder if he imagined his smile faltering.

He probably did.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Summary:  
> Gil/Harry rekindle at Limo and come out  
> Ben and Audrey discuss his premonition  
> VK’s arrive at AP. Ben’s flummoxed by carlos  
> They are introduced to their rooms + school  
> Research on how to get the wand  
> All girls have to try out for cheerleading. Boys tourney  
> Evie meets chad and he kindaaa leads her on


	3. 2b. Anything Your Heart Desires

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _They’re mid-way through cleaning Gil’s wounds when Harry gets uncomfortable with the way he’s being stared at._
> 
>  
> 
> _“Why are you looking at me?” Gil’s contact with his face doesn’t waver, Harry sighs and places the wet rag in the sink, looking up to make eye contact, “What?”_
> 
>  
> 
> _“Why are you being so nice to me,”_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> y'all,,,, im so sorry this is like a month late. pls dont give up on my useless gay ass.
> 
> also obvs this chap is barely a chap lmao its just a how gilxharry happened. im sorry chap 3 is almost done. i swear

Harry was on his way back from Drizelda’s hair salon, happily counting his earnings for the day. Initially, when Uma had first assigned him to collections, he’d struggled, but it had gotten easier with time. Nowadays, he could just about make it through the day without even feeling sick, maybe that meant he was becoming a bad person, but he just saw it as collecting taxes, and he could live with that—politicians do a lot worse shit.

He’d gotten a pretty good haul today, still counting past _two-hundred, two-fifty, two-seventy-five_ — when he was distracted by a noise.

There’s some clattering, groaning and the sound of bags rustling to his left. Harry rolled his eyes, it was probably another tussle, he was tired of the amount of fights that broke out in this neighbourhood. Sure, they were fun sometimes (usually if he could bet on them) but when it was late, and he was tired, he did not want to deal with that shit.

He was about ready to walk on past, needed to make it to Uma’s and then back home before his dad got mad, when he heard the really, _really_ , soft sniffling. He paused, intrigued even though he knew he should probably just carry on, should probably just ignore it, should probably let the kid figure things out for themselves.

But he paused.

“Who’s back there?” he called out. The sniffling immediately stopped. He rolled his eyes again as he took a few more steps into the darkened alley, trying to scout for the voice. Uma would definitely have him just walk straight by (she’d berate him if he ever decided to tell her about this little detour), but he couldn’t just leave a crying kid behind where anyone could find him. Not this close to the dock. Not when they had basically made themselves a sitting target.

They wouldn’t last the night

“C’mon kid, I don’t have all day. Get up ‘fore I have t’give ye something t’cry about,” Harry took a few more steps before the heard the voice call back.

“I can’t,” He turned, following the sound.

“What were that?” He called back.

“I—I can’t move!” was the strained reply he got just as Harry closed in. He stopped just behind a skip and was surprised to realise, he recognised the young boy laying amidst the dirt.

“Gil?” he asked hesitantly, the boy didn’t respond, “Gaston’s son?” he clarified barley holding back a laugh and Gil looked away, blushing.

“Yea that’s me and, as you can see, I’m no threat, now can you just go?” his voice was quiet, trembling and Harry stopped laughing. Uma had been watching Gil for a while now, they’d been friends when they were younger, and she felt he had potential to join the Wharf rats. Harry didn’t see it. He thought the boy was small, weak. He was always getting pushed around – by his brothers especially. Though the scowl currently on his face was out of character. It almost seemed he was trying to… stand up for himself.

Interesting.

Harry analysed him for a moment. He seemed fine, a bit shaken up, but ultimately okay. One of his legs was twisted up pretty bad though, and Harry doubted Uma would be very happy if he just left him here to bleed out regardless of his personal thoughts of the lad.

“What ‘appened? Yer leg looks like shit,” Gil didn’t respond. Instead just settled on heaving breaths and trying to calm his racing heart. His leg killed, he didn’t even want to sneak a look in case it was worse than he thought. His mom had set him a birthday present, that was it. But that was enough to make his brothers angry they hadn’t gotten one too. Thus, led to them taking all their anger out on him. He knew his leg was broken and that breathing hurt— but he was sure there was more wrong with him. Not that he’d ever know. There were no hospitals on the isle.

“Gee really? I didn’t realise?” Gil muttered angrily before trying to lift himself up, or scoot himself away…? Harry couldn’t really tell. He sighed once it became obvious he’d get no further response

“Listen dude, I can’t help, if ah don’t know what’s wrong wit ye. And stop scooting around like that! You’ll fuck up yer leg even worse!” Surprisingly, Gil listened and stop trying to get to wherever he was planning on going.

Harry made a split decision, it was impulsive really – he’d probably regret it but,

He reached down and helped the younger boy up, carrying most of his weight.

“Let’s get you back then,” he muttered to gill, uncharacterizable soft. The younger boy was shocked into silence and could only nod. Together they hobbled back to Harry house.

They encountered CJ on the way up to his room, she opened her mouth to snark something but after the look Harry levelled her with she didn’t say a word.

They’re mid-way through cleaning Gil’s wounds when Harry gets uncomfortable with the way he’s being stared at.

“Why are you looking at me?” Gil’s contact with his face doesn’t waver, Harry sighs and places the wet rag in the sink, looking up to make eye contact, “What?”

“Why are you being so nice to me,”

“I’m cleaning your wounds, not proposing... don’t get any ideas just cause I’m down on one knee,” He deadpanned. Surprisingly Gil giggled and harry shocked himself by laughing along with him.

This wasn’t good

He got his leg and ribs cleaned and wrapped it to the best of his ability, the pair quietly chatting all the while. They sat together for hours on Harry’s bed and the talking divulged from nonsense banter to chats about both of their shitty lives. Gil tried to leave multiple times, but Harry didn’t want him hobbling home alone on a busted leg and whiplash. They didn’t even realise the time had flown by till CJ stuck her head in the door,

“Look, unless ye want dad kicking him out n’ta de streets I’d suggest ye bozos keep yer voices daun. Its 1am, good night,” she scowled, storming off. Gil blushed and started to slide off the bed, one again, but Harry stopped him,

“Nah, stay! I’ll sleep in CJ’s room,”

“No—” Gil started to complain,

“Dude, its fine. Ye good? Need anything?” he asked fleetingly as he left.

“Do you think I could have a glass of water?” Gil asked quietly, hesitantly, and Harry paused in the doorway, he smiled even though the younger boy couldn’t see it.

“Anything yer lil heart desires,” he responded and headed to the kitchen. Upon returning with a full glass and a decanter in case Gil wanted more, Harry found him asleep on the bed. He placed the items on the bedside table for when Gil would undoubtedly wake up parched in the middle of the night and leant down to place a kiss unto his forehead.

“Sleep well _stór_ ,” He murmed as he left the room. He wasn’t surprised to the CJ waiting for him by the door.

“Dude… yer so fucked,” She snorted,

“Don’t ah fucking know it, lass,”


	4. 3. Let's Get Down To Business

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _“Are you sure this will work?” Mal asked, glancing over at Carlos and Ant once they arrived. Panting, Carlos bent over to catch his breath before giving her a thumbs-up. Ant nodded, then collapsed on a stair, looking worse for wear. Gil and Evie had perched on the stairs, not so much exhausted but still tired, their heads leant on the pillar behind. Jay scowled at all of them._
> 
> _“Seriously, what will you guys do when we need to fight actual battles?”_
> 
> _“Escape,” Ant managed, amidst his heaving and Carlos heartily agreed. ___

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> god, im so sorry i havent updated this in forever  
> im also sorry for the bad quality of this chapter like i wrote this ages ago and now me is screeching at some things i wrote lmaoo

“So… I need to go back to cheer practice,” Evie announced as she burst into her and Mal’s room. The four boys looked over from where they sat, huddled around the plans for their ‘heist’ tonight, and watched her collapse unto Mal’s bed, gym bags and all.

She sighed.

Ant looked over at Carlos, who looked at Jay, who looked at Gil, who looked back at Ant.

Evie sighed louder.

“Do we even want to know?” Jay said finally, the reluctance clear in his voice.

“Chad,” Evie said dreamily and seemed to somehow sink further into the bed, “Just Chad.” Jay rolled his eyes, mad at himself for asking.

“Um, hate to break it to you, Evie, but Chad is kind of gay, like hella gay. He’s definitely crushing on Herkie, you know, from the Tourney Team?” Gil said, nudging Ant in the side, he figured that would end the conversation so they could move on. However, the warning looks Jay and Carlos sent him suggested that he may have messed up.

Evie shot into a sitting position and sent Gil a sharp glare.

“Is that supposed to be funny?” She asked. There was no response apart from Jay and Carlos’ answering groans while Ant just subtly scooted away. “He’s not gay, he’s so into me! We have a study date tomorrow!” She babbled on listing things that should convince Gil that Chad was so ‘into her’. Carlos narrowed his eyes at Gil.

“Look what you’ve done.” He whispered, “We’re not gonna hear the end of this,”

“But he is gay, you saw them at practice, right?”

“Yeah but Evie wasn’t at practice. He’ll let her down eventually, it’s totally none of our biz. Trust me, you don’t want an angry, boy-crazy—nay, prince-crazy, Evie on your hands.” Carlos turned back to the laptop where Ant had been valiantly staring and ensuring he didn’t get dragged into the train wreck of a conversation that was happening. Gil turned back to Evie who was still blabbing to poor, uninterested Jay about how she was going to be Chad’s princess. He rolled his eyes.

“I may have been wrong…?” he began hesitantly, interrupting the blue-haired girl’s spiel.

“You were!” Evie agreed, borderline crazily, almost yelling, before calming herself down. She sat shocked at her own behaviour. Gil didn’t get why she was so worked up over this? “You were,” her voice was a lot softer now. Gil almost felt bad, but he figured he wasn’t really lying. After all, Chad could be Bi.

Evie shuffled back to lean against the headboard of the bed, embarrassed by how she had just lashed out. She didn’t mean to get so defensive over being liked, but, it was the whole reason she was in Auradon in the first place. Ever since she was born, her mother had raised her to be the fairest, most wanted person in the room. She was born to marry a prince and bring her mum the royalty and fame Snow had stolen from her. It was second nature to Evie now. Having Gil threaten that, friend or not, would always evoke a negative reaction from her. If she wanted Prince Chad, she was going to get Prince Chad.

“Right,” Gil said, feeling a bit awkward. He nudged Ant again, the smaller boy finally looked up, realising the fight was over. He swivelled round to face the bed.

“So, changing the subject, where is Mal? Cause the museum closes at eight and it’ll be a lot more difficult to get in if we _all_ have to break in.”

“She’s on a date.” Evie informed them all with a sulk, still smarting from the earlier insinuations. That got everyone’s attention.

“She’s what?” they asked, almost in unison. She nodded, reaching over to unpack her cheer stuff. If Plan Chad was going to happen, she’d have to smell nice at the next cheer practice. That entailed her washing her uniform.

“Yea, she went out for milkshakes with that Penny girl, from cheer.” She expanded, and Jay hooted, nodding appreciatively.

“For real? Props to Mal, she is smoking!” he said and begun to describe the physic of Penny’s boob-to-butt ratio to an uninterested Carlos at the same time Ant said to Evie,

“Oh, I love Penny. She’s so chill. She’s like the only one in my Art class who wasn’t scared of me and she completely roasted these dicks who were making fun.” That made Jay pause.

“Wait, making fun of you?” Jay asked, and Ant shrugged looking down shyly.

“It’s not a big deal, there’s always someone. Got one in every class so far.” He replied brushing off the matter. Ant figured things would be better here, but no-one seemed to have grasped the concept of trans. Which was fine, their personal views were none of his business. However, they also seemed to feel like Ant being trans was a problem that concerned them, which was ridiculous; it was privy to him and him only. It’s not like gender was contagious.

Jay looked like he was ready to argue on the matter when the door was suddenly being swung open and Mal entered looking flustered. His attention was immediately diverted at her dishevelled appearance.

“You know I usually advise against sex on the first date.” He joked, and the group divulged into snickers. Mal pointed at him and shook her head.

“No, shut up... we’re not talking about this.” She grabbed a hair band and quickly put her hair up, before heading back to the door, “I was late, but we still have a heist to pull off. Let’s go!”

 

It ended up taking just over an hour to walk down to the museum. Mainly because of Carlos and Ant slacking. Once they reached the first uphill climb the two boys decided that slow and steady was the best way to keep them from passing out. (“look either you let me take it slow, or I’m not gonna get there, Mal!”). The museum was a lot larger and a lot more impressive than the VK’s had imagined it would be from what the online blueprints had shown; with very hi-tech looking security.

“Are you sure this will work?” Mal asked, glancing over at Carlos and Ant once they arrived. Panting, Carlos bent over to catch his breath before giving her a thumbs-up. Ant nodded, then collapsed on a stair, looking worse for wear. Gil and Evie had perched on the stairs, not so much exhausted but still tired, their heads leant on the pillar behind. Jay scowled at all of them.

“Seriously, what will you guys do when we need to fight actual battles?”

“Escape,” Ant managed, amidst his heaving and Carlos heartily agreed.

“C’mon guys, we’ve got 45 minutes to pull this off, let’s get to it. Ant, lay down the plan.” Taking a few more calming breaths. Ant and Carlos straightened up.

“Okay,” he began. “Evie, Mal, Gil, Jay, you four, go through the front and try to get entry. Claim it’s part of Remedial Goodness maybe? Hopefully he’ll let you in but if not don’t worry. If you get in, Mal and Jay come meet us on floor 4, third room on the right, 2ndcorridor down from the elevator whilst Evie you must keep the guard distracted by any means possible. He cannot look at the cameras until Carlos loops it. Gil, you keep watch. If he doesn’t let you up, then you all just distract him. Send us a message and Carlos and I will come up with something new. Once we’re out, we’ll come through the front and get you.” Ant turned to Carlos, who carried on with the plan.

“We will sneak in through the pipes at the back. Disable the cameras and security, grab the wand and get out. It should take 30 minutes max. got it?” there were nods all around. “Okay, let’s get to it!”

The plan was successful. The guard was a young trainee, left alone for his first night. He was easily flustered by Evie’s flirting and Mal and Jay got away basically unseen.

“Boys are so easy,” Mal muttered, Jay shrugged.

“You’re not wrong.” It probably took them a bit too long to find the room where Carlos and Ant were – sue them, they weren’t spies. By the time they finally tumbled in Ant and Carlos were sat on the floor playing a clap game.

“Really?” Jay asked, rolling his eyes at their extra behaviour, “We didn’t take that long.” They shared a look and scoffed.

“Okay so,” Carlos began as Jay and Mal moved closer to the wand in the centre of the room, “I’ve looped the camera and Ant’s located the central panel for the wand security. I just need to unhook the forcefield then you guys will only have moments to grab it okay. So be ready. I’ll yell when its time.” They both nodded, excited that they were so close to being done in Auradon and ruling the world.

They stared hard at the flickering forcefield around the wand as they heard the occasional tinkering and sparking wires from Carlos. Maybe a minute later Mal noticed the forcefield flicker and power down. She smiled waiting for Carlos’ signal which never came. She figured maybe he didn’t realise and panicked, he said they needed to act fast. Impulsively, she reached out and grabbed the wand.

Well, tried to.

Her hand slammed into another forcefield and she cried out at the sudden impact on her wrist. That wasn’t good. An alarm begun to blare. Than was even less good.

“Shit Mal, you okay?” Jay said, noticing the speed at which her hand hit the forcefield. The younger girl couldn’t reply over the alarm.

“Shit!” Carlos looked up at her, shocked, “Shit, shit, shit!!” he quickly shut the panel and grabbed the closest people to him, Jay and Ant, and pulled towards the stairs. Mal followed close behind.

“We need to get out of here now.” He pulled them out of the room and pushed them into a nearby crevice, signalling for them to be quiet. Soon enough, the guard ran past and they all shot into action, running down to meet get Evie and Gil. Carlos quickly headed to erase all camera footage and the history of security changes to the wand panel.

“Guys what happened?” Gil asked noticing their skittishness and Mal cradling her swollen wrist.

“We need to be gone. Now.” Was all Ant told him, and together the six ran out of the museum and all the way back to the school. By the time they got back they were exhausted and disappointed, feeling like failures, they all retreated back to their separate room, silently and solemnly. Apart from Gil who followed Mal and bandaged her sprained wrist.

“If you leave it like this and be careful all night it should be basically fine by morning,” The purple-haired girl could only nod sadly. She couldn’t believe she had failed

Seems they were gonna be stuck here for a while.

___

“Ughh,” Mal groaned once she was rudely awoken by her alarm once again. “I can’t believe we still have to go to school today. We could have been out of here if I hadn’t fucked everything up.” She murmured, upset and slightly angry. She roughly ripped of her make-shift bandage form her wrist and twisted her hand around, testing it out. It hurt but it was bearable. She heard a sigh and suddenly Evie was sitting by her on the bed, already fully dressed and made-up, again. Sometimes Mal really hated her.

“It was an invisible, secondary forcefield. Any of us would have made the same mistake.”

“But you guys didn’t. I did! And Mom wouldn’t have,” Evie remained silent, sighing again. She then pulled most of the blanket off Mal, ignoring the elder girl’s hiss.

“C’mon honey, lessons in 30 minutes. Let’s get you dressed.” Mal’s groans of disagreement turned to screeches as she was pulled bodily off the bed. She landed in a tangled heap of duvet on the floor and frowned in Evie’s general direction.

“God, I hate you,”

“I love you too, let’s get to class.” Evie responded, unfazed, as she tugged Mal’s top over her head and shoved a towel at her, pushing her towards the shower door.

“Are you trying to get in my pants? I know I like girls, but not all girls. I’m not easy,” Mal joked, sliding out of the other girls grip and making a u-turn back to her wardrobe. Evie rolled her eyes when Mal shook her ass at her in what was supposed to be a tempting gesture, she assumed? She then just shoved on some leather shorts and pulled on an Auradon prep hoodie over her underwear. Evie curled up her nose.

“You’re not having a shower?”

Mal rolled her eyes as she sat down to tie up the laces on her new (not-leather) trainers.

“I had one yesterday, I still have a couple hours before that expires, so I’m good.” She explained as she stood up and grabbed her bag. She walked over to meet a grimacing Evie by the door.

“That’s not, uh, that’s not how that works but okay, to Math Class!”

“I have English.” Evie sent her a sympathetic look. “I like English.” Mal reminded her. Evie nodded.

“I know you do, I still don’t, and God do I hate that English teacher.”

Lessons weren’t too bad when it came down to it; apart from Remedial goodness, they all thought that was bullshit. FGM didn’t even try to hide the fact that that course was created solely for them. Core subjects like Maths or Spelling were very interesting however. It seemed like ‘school’ on the isle was not quite right. All six VK’s embarrassed themselves more than once before learning that their knowledge was subpar.

Ant frowned as he heard whispered coming from behind him in Science. He was the youngest so unluckily he wasn’t often in a class with any of his friends. He tried not to think too much of it, tried to convince himself that they probably weren’t even talking about him. He never had this problem on the isle. How is it that a land of villains was more accepting that a land of princes and princesses?

He couldn’t believe that no-one in the whole of Auradon was trans. It was impossible, they were probably in hiding or didn’t understanding their feelings. He felt sorry for all the trans kids that were likely living here, too scared to come out. They had to be worse off than him.

“Hey,” his head shot up, there was a girl slipping into the seat beside him.

“Um,” was his eloquent reply.

“Don’t mind them. Aiden makes up for his lack of brain cells by picking on others. I’m Talia.”

“Anthony. But you can call me Ant.”

“Hi Ant,” she smiled. Hesitantly Ant smiled back before hearing the whispering get louder. The girl must not have known about him already. Ant figured he should tell her before she found out from others and made his embarrassment worse.

“You probably don’t know. I’m, uh, I’m not exactly a… bo—a normal... I—”

“Me neither!” Talia interrupted, eyes sparkling kindly, “I put pineapple on my pizza.” Ant paused for a moment, shocked, before snorting out laughter.

“Oh yeah?” he asked. She nodded, dead serious. “That’s fucking weird. I don’t think I can talk to you anymore” Talia froze too for a moment before laughing back, likely shocked by the swear but charmed overall.

“Mr Tremaine. If you’d like to explain what is so funny that you couldn’t keep it to yourself but had to involve Miss Naveen, I’m sure we’d all love to have a laugh too.” Ant stifled a smile.

“Sorry Miss. I just really love physics. Perpetual motion is the bomb and she doesn’t seem to get it.” Talia couldn’t hold back her laughter and the teacher just raised her eyebrows, obviously amused, before carrying on with the lesson. Ant couldn’t stop smiling.

“How did I just get away with that?” he asked quietly. Talia looked over to check if he was joking or not. Once she decided he actually didn’t know she smiled more sympathetically.

“Cindy has talked you up so much to everyone. I don’t think you’ll get in trouble here for at least 2 weeks.” The boy couldn’t say he wasn’t shocked. He knew his mother said that she and Cindy were cool, but he didn’t imagine his aunt would ever want to see him, ever. Especially after he changed.

“She does?” Talia scoffed to lighten the mood.

“Don’t get too full of yourself, Cindy loves everyone. Now, what was that about me not getting perpetual motion?” the boy just smiled and turned back to face the front of the class room. Still slightly shocked.

His aunt missed him, and he’d made a friend.

“Not my fault you’re no good at physics.”

“Oh, you’re gonna regret saying that little boy.”

_He’d make a friend._

 

Evie and Carlos weren’t having much luck paying attention in Math class.

“why do we need to know how to angle bisect a circle,” Carlos whispered over to Evie who shrugged,

“Good people never win. So, they need to learn all this pretend smart stuff if they want a chance in life.” Carlos nodded back like that made sense. They didn’t notice the girl sitting behind them overhear and send them looks of terror.

“So, what’s our plan?” Carlos asked, sketching a little in the corner of his new notebook. Evie looked around suspiciously, smiling when she noticed the look the girl was giving her before turning back to Carlos, still smiling fakely.

“We have an audience. We can make a Plan B later; for now, let’s try to blend.” She whispered lowly.

“Mr de Vil,” the teacher called and Carlos’ head shot up, quickly reading the question on the board.

“Mr Teacher,” he repeated, mocking the annoyed teacher’s tone, which did little to ease his anger.

“The answer please.” The teacher replied flatly, pointing at the board.

“Well X would be 15 whilst A would be a third.” Carlos replied easily before going back to sketching.

“That is right….” The teacher replied, even more annoyed.

“You’re welcome, if you want to know how to work it out I can tell you that too.” Evie choked back laughter.

“I can work that out, thank you Mr de Vil.” She hi-fived him under the desk subtly. And the two-toned hair boy smiled, proud of himself.

 

Mal had ignored pretty much everything their English teacher had said. She didn’t even catch her name. Seriously, who needed English class? Mal was good at it already; she could speak it, duh. She’d spent most of the period bugging Jay (who wasn’t as good in English) until he genuinely got annoyed and that got boring. So instead she began formulating a back-up plan. She assumed she owed it to her friends after foiling their initial mission. She scribbled over their notebook sketching out ideas and plans.

She tried to think of other powerful magical items apart from FGM’s wand, but she couldn’t come up with much. By the time the lesson was winding down all she had jotted down was:

  * No wand = no hope?
  * Steal powerful stele?
  * Mind control spell? (not yet strong enough)



She groaned in anger when the bell went, and Jay leaned over. He sighed going to tell Mal again how she didn’t need to blame herself or worry about making a new plan. They would work themselves out. She didn’t want to hear it. Mal quickly gathered her stuff and was off with a mumble of ‘I have to get to spelling before my teacher loses her shit’.

Jay stared after her, wishing he could help but knowing how Mal can get when she’s feeling bad. Deciding to leave it for now, he shrugged and walked in the opposite direction, heading over to Physical.

___

Mal had to try so hard not to fall asleep. Mundane Spelling was the only class she had to go through alone, which she initially appreciated as she wanted to do well ~~and prove her mum wrong~~ and she couldn’t do that with distractions. However, in that moment, she was exhausted from yesterday’s failure, the morning’s early rise and her failed attempts at formulating new plans all throughout the day and that exhaustion was overpowering her need to absorb the information that Mrs Fairchild was firing out.

Her head lolled and Mal snorted as she steadied herself, quickly looking around to check if anyone had noticed her fall asleep. The boy sat next to her was snickering quietly (he soon stopped once Mal gave him a look) but apart from that no-one seemed to have seen anything. Thank Hell.

Looking down at her page she realised she’d been pressing down with her pen in her sleep and her pen nub had broken and spilled ink all over her plans.

“Shit,” she murmured glaring down at the mess in front of her and wishing she knew of a Rewind Rune. It was all ruined, not that her plans were much good anyway but the fact that she had ruined all of them was just adding insult to injury. Still at a loss and feeling pretty deflated, she noticed Jane head off to the toilets out of the corner of her eye, through the window of the class room door and got an idea. This was her chance.

Mal’s plans that didn’t include the wand didn’t seem too feasible in her opinion anyway. They were long-term plans whereas having the wand would be quick, short-term and permanent solution which would finally make her mom proud and allow Mal to live up to her name.

If anyone in the whole isle was going to know how to get to FGM’s wand, it would be her daughter and Mal was determined to get information out of the younger girl no matter how freaked out she seemed of her. Mal could be charming when she really wanted to be.

She hoped.

“Miss I need to go to the toilet,”

“Mal, if you’ll let me finish this rune, then you can go whilst the class tries to copy it do—”

“Look. It’s either I go now, or I bleed through my clothes.” Mal deadpanned, already standing and heading towards the door. As she assumed. Mrs Fairchild did not stop her. Once she’d excused herself she ran to catch up with Jane and followed the smaller girl to the toilets. When she slipped in, Jane was already in one of the stalls. Mal busied herself with washing her hands until Jane was out, racking her brain to think through something she could use to trick Jane into getting her the wand, until she heard the toilet flush and said girl slipped out.

The little changeling froze, eyes flickering between mal and the other sink like she was considering foregoing washing her hands, so she didn’t have to breathe the same air as the other girl. Mal decided to take pity on her and moved over to dry her hands, jumping unto the counter. Jane sighed in relief before washing her hands quicker than mal had ever seen anyone wash their hand ever. Her chance was gonna be gone pretty soon, she needed to think fast.

She quickly got an idea and slid down to sit on the section of counter between the sinks and the hand dryers looking at jane for a moment. This seemed to unnerve her further and the girl began to leave. Mal spoke quickly, maybe too quick to come across as sincere, she tried to tone it down.

“You’re so lucky, Jane.” She said. Jane startled, pausing two steps from the door. She slowly turned back, looking confused.

“What?” Mal almost smiled at her tone. She was intrigued. Win!

“It’s just. You’ve got everything. You’re pretty, you’re so smart and you’ve got an amazing mom with great powers, she can give you whatever you want right? I just can’t imagine having that good a life.” Jane’s features softened as she shrugged slightly, preening under the complements.

“I’m not pretty—” she began, stepping away from the door and looking down at her hands.

“But you are! You’re beautiful!” Mal carried on and Jane blushed.

“I’m not!” she was adamant, “and my mom doesn’t even give me whatever I want. She doesn’t even let me go out after curfew. Ever. And—and I’ve been asking for a haircut for years now” Mal tried to pull a sympathetic expression when Jane gestured at her admittedly limp hair, “look at this!”

“oh but…” she paused, jane looked back at her, waiting. “I mean, she did all that for Cinderella. Doesn’t she… doesn’t she love you?”

“she does, she just like believes in all that true beauty lies within stuff.” Jane replied quietly. Almost convincing herself rather than Mal.

“She didn’t think that when she boppiddy bood cindy into that sparkling dress to woo her prince” Jane paused, obviously looking for a rebuttal. Mal decided to change the subject before she could defend her mother “but I mean, I could help you out with your hair if you really wanted.” The change in expression of the other girl’s face was immediate.

“What do you mean?” she asked, hopeful and borderline excitedly.

“Lemme see, um.” Mal slipped out the stele Jay had stolen from Spelling 101 and whispered ‘new hair’ in Latin before drawing the transformation rune and pushing it back towards jane. She blinked as her short hair lengthened and gained waves and volume.

“No way!” she gasped turning around to admire her new hair in the mirror. “no way way. Thank you, thank you, thank you! This is so cool. I can’t believe this. It’s so cool. I look so… do my nose!” she exclaimed

“Oh, um, I can’t do the really… um, really big transformations. Not like your mom with her wand! One wack from that and you’d be—man, you could look just like Cindy or Snow or one of those other big names you know!” Jane deflated.

“Oh, mum doesn’t use the wand anymore. She says the real magic is in the books. She’s got it locked up in some museum.”

“and it never comes out?” mal was finally getting somewhere.

“No,” Mal swore quietly, “Well, only for big events like christenings or coronations.”

“Coronations? like bens coronation?” Mal remembered from the introduction booklets they’d received from Doug and Hetty. Ben was becoming the King, he would have to have a coronation upon his 18th. She knew it was soon. Jane looked startled as if she forgot.

“oh yeah, she’ll whip it out for king ben but not for her own child,” she said still smarting over Mal’s comments but Mal was done playing agony aunt. That was jane’s problem to deal with. Mal smiled slipping down from the counter

“well look if she ever decides to whip it out for princess Jane, her daughter,” al said, leaning down to look hr in the ye, “I wanna be there for that family moment.” Jane brightened up.

“you think she’d do that,” mal shrugged.

“if she loves you like you say she does. Then I’m sure she’s do anything for you Jane,”

 

___

“Guess who just solved our problem!”

Everyone looked up as Mal walked in, smiling triumphantly. She flounced into the room, spinning around happily before setting her bag down on the table and turning to her friends. “The coronation,” she said finally and sighed when she only got with blank looks in return. “FGM uses the wand as part of the coronation ceremony. We’re invited to that. Now we just need to figure out how to get right in front.” Mal explained and their faces lit up in understanding and Evie clapped excited. However, before anyone could verbally celebrate Carlos chimed in.

“Well that’s a bust. Ben said that only his family and/or consorts can stand up front with him. Cause he’s single, most likely it’ll be Audrey, his ‘life partner’ up there.” Mal frowned. She had worked extremely hard to come up with a new plan. Way too hard for Carlos to dash it down so nonchalantly. This plan was going to work.

“Easy,” Mal countered undeterred, levelling him an unimpressed look “Love spell.” She clarified at the same time Evie asked,

“How do you know all that? When did you and Ben get so close?” Carlos blushed. Mal rolled her eyes before rummaging through her bag to pull out her (mother’s) spell book, ignoring her idiot friends as they discussed Carlos’ blatant crush. She quickly flicked through it.

“Look, look here’s one!” Mal quickly scribbled an expansion rune using her stele and the page lifted revealing the reviews. “4.9/5. Brilliant. We’re using this love spell for sure. Any objections?” everyone turned to face Carlos almost in sync. Jay smirked.

“Did Ben give you anymore saucy tips?” He murmured with a snicker and Carlos just shrugged and scowled, crossing his arms. Mal sighed a they group once again divulged into a chat about Carlos’ affections towards Ben (which the younger boy was wholeheartedly denying). She didn’t understand why they were encouraging Carlos’ silly crush. It would never work out, especially once Ben was under the effect of the love spell. Then he’d never even notice Carlos. Both outcomes were not good, Mal didn’t want Carlos to get is hopes up.

“Evie, you ready to do this?” she interrupted and the younger girl looked surprised. Like she didn’t expect to be the one to gain Ben’s love. She floundered for a bit.

“Uh, well, I’m actually wooing Chad right now, so that would be kinda weird, right? Like, having his friend like me?” the blue haired girl stuttered out. Mal rolled her eyes, she skipped over Gil, no point in even trying that.

“Jay?” she looked over at the older boy who was now smirking down at a phone with a tell-tale look on his face – obviously chatting someone up.

“Oh, and ruin everyone else’s chance at getting with me? Why would I do that to them?” she huffed and turned to the remaining two boys who didn’t look ready to volunteer either.

“You know what, never mind, I’ll just do it. You’re all a bunch of wimps.” She decided before stomping over to sit down. She quickly re-read over the spell, ensuring she could get the ingredients they needed and practicing her rune with a pencil on a bit of scrap paper. It wasn’t one they had covered in Mundane Spelling so she’d have to wing it. She felt someone looking over her shoulder and just scowled harder. If they weren’t going to help, the least they could do is to not disturb her

“So the plan is, get invited then you what—grab it?” Ant offered, trying to lighten Mal’s souring mood but succeeded in surprising her instead. She jolted and scribbled over her practice runes.

“Fuck. Ant you little—"

“Grab what?” everyone tuned their heads to the now open door where Li Lonnie stood, holding a magazine and smiling. She startled at the unfriendly looks she received but soon schooled her features, Mal was tempted to scoff. What did she expect? “um sorry, didn’t mean to interrupt. I was wondering if you could maybe do my hair?” she asked.

“Now why would I do that?” Mal replied, not even looking up from her book. She flipped the page and started on new sketches. Lonnie sheepishly held up a bag of coins. Jay was up immediately, grabbing it and counting.

“Right answer!” he signalled to Evie who reluctantly got up and begun analysing Lonnie’s face.

“I’m thinking, add a bit of length and some highlights. Layer the back but leave some roots so you can grow into it.” The other girl just smiled excitedly, probably not really taking in Evie’s rambles. Mal sighed, for like the hundredth time so far, seeing that she had no choice.

“I mean, I had a reference picture.” Lonnie mentioned, holding out the magazine.

“No,” was all Evie said, throwing the mag to the side before pushing Lonnie into a seat aside the mirror and gestured for mal to come closer with her head.

“Fine.” Mal grumbled and grabbed her stele getting up and walking towards the chair where Lonnie was sat. She murmured ‘cool hair’ in Latin whilst drawing the transformation rune in the air. She pushed it towards the back of Lonnie’s head and within seconds the girl’s short black bob was transformed into long luscious brown waves with honey highlights. The other girl squealed excitedly. Spinning in front of the mirror and eyeing her hair up, admiring it.

“Do you think Artie will like it?” she questioned turning to Evie.

“I think he’ll love it,” Evie said earnestly, and Lonnie smiled harder before running out.

“Who’s Artie?” Gil asked. Evie shrugged.

“Fuck if I know. Gotta keep the customers happy though.”

“right, so spell? Kitchen after curfew? Maybe we—”

“Hi, is this Mal’s room?” They were interrupted once again. This time by a young-looking girl with straight white blond hair standing by the door. “Could you do my hair too?”

“Just yours?” Mal asked sarcastically.

“well,” the girl began and suddenly here was a lot of hushed chatter, Mal looked out the door to see a relatively long line of both boys and girls leading into Ant’s room.

“we do not have the fucking time fir this,” she mumbled to Jay. However, he was busy eyeing their satchels of money. He laughed.

“Yes we do. C’mon in little girl, let’s get started.”

It took a while, and Mal didn’t love how everyone seemed to suddenly love them rather than fear them. She was also a little freaked out when Jane went a bit crazy and ripped her skirt. It wouldn’t do Mal any good if she’d accidentally messed Jane up in the head. Even jay was taken aback at that.

“Okay, who’s next?” Ant called out, scribbling out a few names on his list as he looked round the room. There was only one girl left. She stuck her head into room smiling shyly. Upon noticing all the other customers had gone, she smiled wider and strolled in, grabbing Mal’s wrist and promptly heading back out.

“I booked a private appointment, don’t worry about me!” Mal sent a helpless look around the room and was met with sniggered and suggestive gestures. She really hated her friends.

“I’ll meet you guys after curfew,” she managed to call out before she was out of the door

___

Mal couldn’t help her relived sigh once the curfew bell finally rang. How she had been roped into another date with Penny, she did now know! Not that she wasn’t having fun. Penny was super freaking attractive but after that first date Mal didn’t really feel too enthusiastic to take the relationship forward. Penny had the sarcasm and the humour down to a T but she was missing a specific bite to her. She was too nice, not good but nice.

There was a difference.

While Mal could deal with ‘good’, she’d never experienced nice before. She didn’t much rate it. Mal liked girls who talked back and didn’t just take her sassiness. Penny was that but… something was missing.

“Gosh, would you look at the time! Gotta dash! Don’t want FGM to have any more reasons to suspect me,” Penny rolled her eyes at Mal’s frantic actions pulling her back down unto the bed. Their game of Boyfriend To Death stayed paused on a totally NSFW screen.

“You can sleep over,” she said suggestively, “Stella been spending a lot of nights at Artie’s. Damn her and her mastery of the portal rune.” Mal laughed nervously, scooting away slightly on the bed. She couldn’t get distracted. Although, Penny did look extremely appealing. She should be banned from wearing strappy tops, it was really unfair.

“I don’t really know if I should,” Mal started but was cut off when Penny leaned in and pressed a soft kiss to her mouth. She lost her train of thought. It was only a peck but,

“Is this okay?” Penny asked softly after she pulled away and Mal just pulled her back in. she slotted their moths together pushing the laptop away as Penny arms came up to cradle her face. She could feel the other girl smirking and Mal was tempted to pull back. She was being so easy right now and had just fallen into Penny’s trap so easily. But she didn’t. instead she pushed the girls softly and crawled over her trailing her kisses down to Penny’s neck leaving wet kisses in her wake, spurred on by soft groans she made. Penny impatiently reached down and pulled of their cami before reaching for Mal’s too. That sobered her. She couldn’t stay up here and sleep with Penny whilst her friends were waiting for her to come down and help make the love spell. When she dominated the world, she could get all the girls she wanted. Horny teen or not, Mal could and would resist temptation.

She broke away (which was a feat in itself. You try pulling away from a topless girl with her hand up your top,). Penny opened her mouth, probably to ask what was wrong but Mal beat her to the punchline.

“I have feelings for someone else.” Both girls froze in shock

“Oh,” Penny began quietly, crossing her arms over her bra, “That’s okay, I guess—I, um, shouldn’t have—”

“Shit I totally didn’t mean to fucking say that. Like I didn’t even know I liked her like that but I guess I do. Its super weird, Im sorry. Like, you’re so fucking hot penny but whenever I start to do anything with you, I can’t help but think of her. That’s not fair on you, that’s wrong.” Penny smiled sadly pulling her top back on.

“you’re a lot more good than I gave you credit for.” She stood gesturing to her door, “you’re free to leave.”

 

“thanks, oh, by the way. How do I get to the kitchens”

“You’re making a love potion, aren’t you?” she asked lowering her voice, “God, at least give her a chance to love you before spelling her.” Penny soon burst into laughter, likely at Mal’s responding expression. She quickly stuttered through a denial while penny dismissed in with a wave before shooing her out of the door and rattling of basic instructions.

Mal was still on edge when she arrived in the kitchen. Evie, Ant and Gil sat, crossed-legged and huddled on one of the counters. Mal hoped they were scheming but it looked more like they were gossiping. They didn’t even notice her enter; unlike Jay and Carlos who sat by a table laden with baking ingredients and were a lot more attentive. Mal decided to join them.

“Okay we need to get this done asap cause I’m pretty sure after this both penny and ben will hate my guts and I don’t wanna be around for that.”

“trouble in paradise?”

“Shut up Jay,” She grumbled, tired and antsy, still not sure if the spell would even work. “Is this the stuff?” Carlos nodded gesturing to the two piles; one of baking ingredients and the other with more obscure items.

“Woah, where’d you score the electrum from?” Mal picked up the small jar and gave Jay an impressed look. This stuff was not cheap. Impossible to get on the isle. The boy just smirked, losing himself in his thoughts for a moment.

“I can’t tell you my sources,” was all he said and Mal moved on. They had it, that was all tat mattered.

She mixed together the ingredients her friend had gathered for her (at least they were useful for something) and poured the dough unto the tray. Just as she was checking over to make sure she hadn’t missed anything, she saw it

“We need a tear.” She said, already dreading the response she’d receive. Evie, Gil and Ant finally looked up.

“A tear? Like you want one of us to cry?”

“Um, VK’s don’t cry.” Carlos added

“Don’t you think I know that?” Mal snapped, rubbing her temples

“Wait, I think I can get a fake one. I if just—”

“No, look it says it has to be a genuine tear of human sadness otherwise results are variable. This has a 98% success rate. We need to follow it to a T,”

 “I mean, Gil you were pretty upset about the whole Harry situation. You know, him leaving you because you lied about—”

“No!” Evie interrupted icily, “We are not going to try to make one of our own cry. We can’t turn on each other like that.”

“Fine!” Mal butted in, “I’ll just have to cast an exponential instead, it’s weaker but hopefully it’ll do. Carlos, a hair please.”

“yeah sure thing— wait, me?”

“No the other Carlos, look we all know Prince Ben is obsessed with you. This will just turn that obsession into an infatuation. It won’t work unless the person already has feeling. That is what we need rn babe, you’re our only option.”

“He doesn’t even like me though,” he argues meekly, already knowing what the turnout would be.

“Then the potion won’t work, and we’re back to square one. But if we don’t try, then it automatically doesn’t work.”

He sighed, looking down at his palms nervously. He knew his friends wouldn’t understand why he was so hesitant but he didn’t want to trick ben. It didn’t feel right. He was clearly getting soft, they needed to get out of Auradon asap. Determined, he tugged a hair out and passed it to Mal.

“Good boy,” she said, obviously mocking ben from the story Carlos had told them al earlier and everyone giggled. He was so going to regret this.

___

Gil sighed as he strayed further and further from the school grounds. After everything they had pulled today he felt he needed a break. He’d never been very good at being bad, even back on the isle when he had been surrounded by the ‘right’ influence he’d struggled to take money from children who couldn’t fight back and steal from unsuspecting shop owners.

So today, after creating a literal love spell to trick Ben into inviting Carlos to the coronation so they could steal the wand, Gil was at his wits end. He could handle this, they were sent here by their parents to get the wand; that was the whole aim. He couldn’t back down now, this was his only chance as gaining redemption from his father. If he failed, his life would be 10 times more miserable when they were kicked back to the isle.

He angrily kicked a rock out towards the ocean, this wasn’t fair. If they didn’t try to steal the wand in the first place maybe they could have a life here.

Gil smiled a little as he picked up a rock and skimmed it across the lake. A life on Auradon would be nice. He imagined finishing school and moving up to college, hanging out with the VK’s on the weekends, maybe even working so they could afford a house together like their hideout on the Isle. It made him feel warm inside, but something was missing. Gill dropped all the pebbles he’d gathered straight into the shallow end of the lake. It was Harry.

The whole dream scenario seemed pointless without him. Gil’s not even sure if he would want to stay if it meant never seeing Harry again. Sure, they were young and, on the wide spectrum of things, hadn’t been together that long but they’d been through a lot. Harry made him feel special, that, coupled with the fact that he was so cold to most other people, was really nice to be around. He could never forget the day they had gotten together. It had forever remained the best thing to ever happen to him.

For Gil, that memory alone settled the matter; even the most perfect life wouldn’t be worth living without Harry.

He dropped to sit on the mud and swung his legs out over the edge, he grabbed a small stick from beside him, so he could doodle on the ground. He’d been working on his runes lately. Gaston hadn’t let him study on the Isle, so he’d had to settle for reading his friends and stealing books his friends didn’t have. Mal was so obsessed with being as good as her mother was, so Gil had read up a lot on spells. He was hoping he’d be able to master the communication rune.

Another pathetic attempt to communicate with harry.

He wondered if the other boy was even thinking about him at all. Gil could only hope. Harry had a bit of a reputation before their relationship (and during the early stages). He could have given Evie a run for her money. If he’d retreated back into his persona of going for anything that breathed— Gil cut off his train of thoughts, there.

He wouldn’t do that.

He swore quietly as more doubtful thoughts filled his mind, try as he might to block them out.

Harry wouldn’t do that to him.

“You okay dude?” A voice rang out from behind him. Gil yelped, spinning round and brandishing the stick in front of himself defensively. “Whoa!” the boy said, raising his hands and taking a step back. “I didn’t mean to scare you bro.” Gil breathed a sigh of relief and lowered the stick back towards the ground, heart still racing.

“I’m evil, I don’t get scared.” Gil defended weakly. The boy snorted eyeing the stick.

“Yeah, sure. What were you gonna do with that?” it sounded like the other kid was trying to mock him. Gil flushed.

“Wouldn’t you like to know?” Gil replied back, hoping that would end the conversation. He turned away and sat down by a tree facing the ocean. If he squinted, he was pretty sure he could make out the isle. Or maybe it was just his imagination.

“Do you miss it?” suddenly the other boy was sitting by him, knees pressed against Gil’s. god, good people were annoying. No-one on the isle would bug him like this. Gil figured the boy couldn’t have been further from the truth. Him, of all people, missing the isle?

“something like that.” He finally admitted, wrapping his arms around his knees and curling up in a bid to but some space between the two boys but the other just took it as an invitation to scoot closer.

“Yeah, I relate. I get homesick all the time.” Gil looked up at him, now intrigued.

“You’re not from here either?”

“Well I haven’t come as far as you have but no, yeah I’m from Agrabah.” Realisation came upon him quickly.

“Holy crap, you’re Aladin’s son. You’re a prince.” The other boy shrugged, a humble smile adorning his face. “You’d really hate my friend jay.” Was all Gil’s brain could come up with. The boy laughed.

“Well I doubt he’s as bad as Jafar. I mean, you seem pretty cool, not at all how I imagined Gaston’s son.” It was Gil’s turn to shrug. “Although, you’re as hot as I thought you’d be though,” Gil blushed, looking down at his fingers.

“You’re not so bad yourself.” The other boy laughed and toned down his flirting at Gil’s obvious discomfort.

“I’m Al,” he introduced himself, getting to his feet and offering Gil a hand, “Let’s go explore!” Girl pursed his lips in thought. Should he? He glanced back out towards the Isle. His father would so not approve.

He took Al’s hand.

“Okay. Let’s go!”


End file.
